The document summarizes the Europeana Newspapers Workshop. The workshop aimed to aggregate 18 million digitized historic newspaper pages from 12 European libraries to improve search capabilities. It discussed aggregating and presenting newspaper content across cultures while sharing best practices to improve availability and accessibility. The project involves 12 content providers, 2 networking partners, 4 technology providers, and 1 aggregator working to refine search through optical character recognition, layout recognition, and entity recognition.

1. Europeana Newspapers Workshop
Aggregation and Presentation
Marieke Willems, LIBER
Mail: marieke.willems@kb.nl
Amsterdam, September 16th, 2013

2. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp 2
Europeana Newspapers Project
Best Practice Network that aims at aggregating 18 million digitised
historic newspaper pages from 12 European libraries, drastically
improving search and retrieve possibilities.
Volume
Cross European cultures
Sharing best practices
Improving availability
Improving accessibility

3. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp
Why Newspapers
Newspapers are an everyman’s
source of information
“Newspapers represent normal
life in its own native locality”
“the newspaper and the historian” Lucy
Maynard Salmon (1923)
Image: Nationaal Archief The Netherlands

4. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp
The challenges……
Newspapers were not meant to be preserved…
• frail and crumbly paper
• missing edition
• incomplete supplements
• poorly bound
• fading ink
• different fonts
• legal uncertainties
with contemporary material

5. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp
Who
12 content providers
2 networking partners
4 technology providers
1 aggregator

6. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp
Who – associated partners

7. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp 7
How
Drastically improve search and retrieve possibilities through
refinement
• Optical Character Recognition
• Optical Layout Recognition
• Named Entity Recognition (persons, places and organisations)

8. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp 8
How
Evaluating quality and developing prediction tools for individual libraries to improve
OCR results.

9. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp 9
How
Image: Ukenaut
Metadata standardisation and recommendations

10. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp 10
How
Image: HenrikS
Building a content browser for newspapers

11. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp 11
How
Image: Australian National Maritime Museum
Share best practices via workshops and national information days

12. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp 12
After this workshop….
Workshop Newspapers in Europe and the digital agenda for Europe.
29-30 September 2014, British Library, London
National information days:
•National Library of Austria: 25-26 March 2014
•National Library of France: 3 April 2014
•British Library: 9 June 2014

13. This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the
European Community http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp
1. Europeana Newspapers shares with you:
• Aggregation process
• Europeana Newspapers Browser
2. Channa Veldhuijsen shares principles of usability testing
3. User testing: share your thoughts on the Europeana Newspapers
Browser.
4. Together we’ll share experiences and ideas on designing a newspaper
browser on the basis of 6 case studies
Best practice sharing at this workshop
Image from Library of Congress

14. Enjoy the workshop!
http://www.libereurope.eu
http://www.europeana-newspapers.eu/