Preserving the Unpreservable:
Form, Content, Copyright and the
Archiving of Born-Digital
Newspapers
Lisa Lynch
Concordia University
Paul Fontaine
McGill University
April 4, 2014
Born-digital archiving
1. We describe the prevailing practices in borndigital newspaper archiving
2. Turn to Canada as a case study to illustrate
the current impasse
The British Library has preserved
over 65 million news articles from
archives dating back 300 years
The Library of Congress has
collected newspapers from each
state for its Chronicling America
project
The Swedish Royal Libraries’
KulturaRW3 program, has been
collecting news websites since
1996
Contemporary archiving challenges:
1. Copyright concerns
2. Technical hurdles
3. A lack of consensus
Public vs. private interests
• Issues around copyright have been made more
urgent by the fact that newspapers see their
own archives as a marketable good
• The copyright interest of newspapers has
meant, overwhelmingly, the archiving of
historical newspapers ends sometime in the
first part of the twentieth century
Technological hurdles
• PDF archiving: the collecting and
processing of PDFs instead of digitizing or
microforming printed newspapers
Challenge: requires a relationship
between archivists and news outlets
• Web harvesting: software captures and
archives a site’s web pages
Challenge: news sites behind paywalls
generally are not harvested
Whose task is it?
• The Centre for Research Libraries argues that
libraries should work directly with for-profit
archiving companies and newspapers
• As both government and foundation money has
become more scarce, archiving projects have
relied on public-private partnerships in order to
secure funding
Why Can’t We
Be Friends?
• Library archivists may be loath to give control
over to those with commercial interests
• The financial situation of many newspapers
might discourage them from involvement in a
project that has potential costs
The Canadian Context
• Library and Archives Canada has long
considered the archiving of newspapers to
be a provincial rather than federal
responsibility
• In 2013, a deal was announced between
LAC and Canadiana to digitize 40 million
texts images from LAC’s archives
• This deal emphasized that LAC’s own role
in future digitization projects would be
minimal
What to archive?
• Globe and Mail is still in
the process of prioritizing
what material will be
transferred. A portion of
their content remains in a
dark archive accessible
only to employees
• Sun Media, like The
Globe, either lost or
decided to leave behind
content during their most
recent migration
Limitations
• Weak national library system,
• Economically ailing news industry that is
framed as a commercial enterprise rather
than a public good
• Legal framework that has produced an
unclear climate around copyright
• Archival community that has largely been
unwilling to challenge copyright laws
Conclusions
• The failure to archive born-digital news
represents an abdication of responsibility
towards an important part of the world’s
cultural heritage
• However, as Canada is an active partner
in the Center for Research Libraries, it
may be that momentum on the U.S. end
can convince Canadian news publishers
to partner with libraries and aggregators