<br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername"></b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:abbott1912@aol.com" target="_blank">abbott1912@aol.com</a>></span><br>Date: Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 5:56 AM<br>
Subject: Newspaper digitization<br>To: <a href="mailto:info@snocoheritage.org" target="_blank">info@snocoheritage.org</a><br>Cc: <a href="mailto:paulj@smalltownpapers.com" target="_blank">paulj@smalltownpapers.com</a><br>
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<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">Hello League,</font></div>
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<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">Our old newspapers provide an incredible amount of insight and information into our local history, but even when we have them bound and preserved, accessing them can be very difficult and prone to damage. Many of you know that the Granite Falls Historical Society decided to have their old editions scanned by a company called SmallTownPapers, Inc. of Seattle. It took us a while to get started - among other things, we had never really completed an accurate inventory. However, we finally got things underway, and expect to have the digitization finished by the Dec 15th deadline for grant expenditure reimbursement. Our initial 2800 pages have been returned to us (we have almost 8000 pages total), and the results are quite remarkable. The improvement in readability over the microfilm we have is at least 5 to 1 (maybe better). The pictures in the paper are now completely preserved, not relegated to black-and-white blobs. The resolution of the scans provides images that are precise duplications of the original, with the added benefit of being able to "zoom" to read them much more easily than the originals. The images are organized and numbered in such a way that one can instantly locate a specific issue and page, just by looking at the folder and file names.</font></div>
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<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">Our project also entails running these images through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, which wil convert the images into actual text that is word-searchable. Using keywords or names, we will be able to locate specific articles precisely, without searching entire months or years of issues (although that can be fun, it sure sucks up time). Despite my initial trepidation regarding how well the OCR might work, I can see from the images that it should provide a very high degree of conversion to text, with minimal missing words or articles. We did not unbind our papers, so there is some minimal loss near the bound edge, but it is truly minimal. That could be entirely eliminated if one were to unbind the issues.</font></div>
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<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">We will provide a final report for the League of Heritage Organizations, but I wanted to offer this good news now, since most of you are likely budgeting for next year and planning grant requests. For more detailed information on the services available, you can contact:</font></div>
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<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">Paul Jeffko<br>
SmallTownPapers, Inc.<br>
5026 California Avenue SW<br>
Seattle, WA 98136<br>
206-938-9073<br>
<a href="http://www.smalltownpapers.com" target="_blank">www.smalltownpapers.com</a></font></div>
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<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">If you'd like an example taken from our own papers, let me know, but the high-resolution images are in .tif format, and comprise large files for email. </font><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">The Granite Falls Historical Museum is looking forward to opening access to a wealth of local information, since we have all papers starting in 1923. We certainly wish we had earlier issues from Granite Falls, Silverton, and Monte Cristo but none of those happen to be in our collection.</font></div>
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<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">Best regards,</font></div>
<div><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">Fred</font></div>
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</div>-------------------------------------------<br><br>Addendum<br>One thing he did not talk about is how much work they
did on copyright clearance for this company. <br>
To make comparisons - Please see other historical newspaper digitizing projects throughout the state and by the Washington State Library on this link. <br>
<a href="http://www.ci.burlington.wa.us/imageuploads/Media-3306.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ci.burlington.wa.us/imageuploads/Media-3306.pdf</a> (this list is out of date already but gives you an idea)<br clear="all">
Also for some competition, one company I know of doing the same thing is NewspaperArchive.com . They recently sent a special offer to the Stanwood Area Historical Society offering to do them for free for a limited time. <br>
-- <br>Karen Prasse<br>
League of Snohomish County Heritage Organizations<br><a href="mailto:info@snocoheritage.org" target="_blank">info@snocoheritage.org</a><br><a href="http://www.snocoheritage.org" target="_blank">www.snocoheritage.org</a><br>
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