1. Challenges and Solutions in
Creating a European Historic
Newspapers Browser
Alastair Dunning
Europeana Newspapers
September 2013

2. Work
Package 4 -
Aggregation and
presentation of digitized
newspapers
Task $
“...
Creation of a full-text index
of newspaper content
Development of a
newspaper content
browser

3. In reality ...
The European Library is
building an interface to
allow cross-searching of
historic newspapers
digitised by project
partners
Title-level metadata
exported to Europeana.

4. Sep 2013 - Beta version with limited
content and functionality made
available
Timetable
2014 - Ongoing inclusion of more
content and functionality
Spring 2014 - Usability testing I (subject
to project funding)
Winter 2014 - Usability testing II (subject
to project funding)
Jan 2015 - All scheduled content and
functionality completed

5. Full Images, Full Text, Metadata
What content
will be
included ?
Latvia, Belgrade, Hamburg, Berlin,
Estonia, Finland, Netherlands *,
Austria *
Snippets of Images, Full Text,
Metadata
Frederich Tessman, France *,
Poland

6. Complete
Newspaper image
can be shown
Eesti Potimees ehk
Naddaleleht , 2
November 1866
(National Library of
Estonia)

7. Full Images, Full Text, Metadata
What content
will be
included ?
Latvia, Belgrade, Hamburg, Berlin,
Estonia, Finland, Netherlands *,
Austria *
Snippets of Images, Full Text,
Metadata
Frederich Tessman, France *,
Poland

8. Fragment of Newspaper
image can be shown
Dziennik Slaskui, 10 June
1915
(National Library of
Poland)

9. Just Metadata
What content
will be
included ?
Turkey
(Partners with copyright issues)
All Associate Partners (for now)
The available content in influenced
by what restrictions in copyright
and business model from each
of the contributing libraries.

10. Just title level metadata can
be shown:
“Kleine Blatt, 15 November
1932”
(National Library of Austria)
(Although can we have dark
index of full text ?)

11. Creating a
newspapers
interface
that ...
• Provides unique value to users
• Reflects relationship to original
•
•
•
•
physical newspaper collections
Is sustainable
Offers contributors added value
Defines relationship to
Europeana
Respects library wishes

12. Provides
unique value
to users
Users can cross-search
European Newspapers
18m pages, 10m with full text
Users can see what was
published on a particular day
across Europe
Users can see information on
individual newspapers

13. But who are
the users ?
Local historians
Researchers
Undergraduates
Genealogists
Teachers and / school pupils
‘Interested public’
….
(According to the project
Description of Work it is for the
‘researcher’)

14. Respects
library wishes
The available content in
influenced by what
restrictions in copyright and
business model from each
of the contributing libraries.
●Location of digital image
●Size of image
●Format of image

15. Reflects
relationship to
original
physical
newspaper
collections
Not all issues in a
newspaper title will be
available to TEL, or even
digitised
Documents hosted by TEL
will be different quality than
those
Contextual information vital

16. Embedded in The European
Library (TEL) portal
Is sustainable
TEL membership fees will
help with ongoing costs
TEL members can add
content to newspaper
browser over time

17. Offers
contributors
added value
Logos and links back to
source of original content
But also evidence of usage
of library content via TEL /
what statistics are needed ?

18. Is developed
iteratively
Interface will respond to
usability testing
Harvesting of different
material will affect interface
Changing requests from
libraries
Uneven quality, especially in

19. First
Iteration
Basic text search
Filtering of results by
●date
●country
●newspaper
●language
●library

20. First
Iteration
● OCR shown
● Zoomable version of full
image
● Clickable links between
full text and image
(sometimes)
● Link to newspaper source
library (where we have
been provided with links)

21. Second
Iteration
● Fragments (where requested by
library)
● See information on particular
title
● See what was published on a
particular day
● Search over titles (not just text)
● Other browseable visualisations
of publication and library
source
● Search / browse via entities

22. Testing the
Site
Newspapers from national libraries of
Finland and Austria are available for
searching (Sample search terms: Linz,
Graz, Salzburg, Turku, Oulu, Tampere)
{Site will be made available for testing
after the conference}
1. Play with site (it will break)
2. Put post it notes on wall …
Landing Page / Search Results Page /
Newspaper Page