The document discusses the process of digitizing newspapers from microfilm for the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project (VTDNP). It explains that microfilm is the basis for any National Digital Newspaper Program project and discusses evaluating the microfilm for things like acetate or polyester composition and vinegar syndrome. It also covers whether to do scanning in-house or outsource it to vendors. The document outlines the VTDNP workflows, including title selection, working with microfilm, creating metadata, scanning, optical character recognition, quality review, and delivering files to the Library of Congress to make the newspapers searchable online. It asks if there are any questions about this process.

1. The VTDNP:
From Microfilm to Keyword-
Searchable Online Newspapers
Tom McMurdo, VTDNP Project Librarian

2. Microfilm is the basis of any
NDNP project.

3. Why use negatives to make
scans of newspapers?

4. Finding the negatives

5. Most master negatives of newspapers are “pre-
standards.”

6. Microfilm Evaluation:
Acetate or polyester?
Vinegar syndrome
Scanning quality

7. Scanning: In-house or vendor?
2 very different approaches:
control versus overhead

8. Most National Digital Newspaper Program
state projects outsource scanning.

9. Scanning RFP
There are several excellent
companies working on NDNP
state projects.
What are the criteria for
evaluating this RFP?

10. Scanning vendors working in the NDNP

11. VTDNP Workflows
Title selection
Microfilm: positives and negatives
Metadata creation
Scanning, OCR, and XML files
Quality review
Delivery to LC
Searchable pages online

12. Title selection
Selections chosen through a
rigorous process
Stakeholders
Justifiable process

13. Microfilm
Positive vs. negative film

14. Metadata creation:
Frame-by-frame inventory

15. Scanning, OCR, and XML files

16. Quality review of scans and files

17. Files to Library of Congress

18. Success!
Online searchable Vermont newspapers

19. Questions?