IntroductionAbstract: This overview of the International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON) — which is located at the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) — examines the origins of the organization; the challenges of newspaper preservation and access; the institutions that contributed to its formation; preservation and collection criteria; holdings; collaborative activities; and, development of the Database of International Newspapers. The database was released initially in 2002, has been widely acclaimed for its value to librarians and researchers, and has contributed to ICON’s envisioned role as a global initiative.
The printed newspaper as we know it today has a history of almost 400 years. During that span of time, over most of the world, the daily events that affect the lives of ordinary people have been written, discussed, photographed, satirized, praised, and analyzed. It is a fascinating, first-hand source for not only history, but also fashion and art, commerce and values, culture, politics and the thousand seemingly trivial things that people want to know about. What’s playing at the movies tonight? When is the parade? Who’s singing at the opera this weekend? What did the President say? In every language, the newspaper is an irreplaceable primary resource not only for today’s information needs, but especially for historians of every discipline.
It is ironic therefore, that such a valuable historical resource has been treated rather shabbily in the past by libraries and other repositories. Most likely the disposable nature of the daily newspaper has contributed to the mindset that newspapers may not be as valuable as monographs or other formats. Newspapers are usually unwieldy physically — printed in large formats on cheap, usually acidic paper — and take up a lot of valuable space in a very short amount of time. They also are difficult to catalog, with title changes, consolidations, special issues, runs that end abruptly and begin again, often unannounced. Their holdings require constant attention.
Increasingly, though, researchers from amateur genealogists to professionals and academicians are finding a treasure trove in newspapers. CRL has long understood the valuable assets it holds for use by its members. In a 2005 usage study, newspaper pages represented 75 percent of the content that CRL delivers to its users (Narrative Report to the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation: “Collection Use Analysis for On-Demand Digital Delivery”). Of the more than 12,000 newspaper titles CRL has in its collection, there are over 7,000 current and retrospective newspapers published outside the United States.
The International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON) is the result of CRL’s long history in cooperative foreign newspaper preservation activities. Having started filming and acquiring film of some 50 foreign newspapers for its members as early as 1952, CRL was filming 146 titles in 1961 for 54 participating subscribers as part of the Foreign Newspaper Microfilm Project (FNMP). For the next two decades, CRL maintained its role as one of the few institutions in the U.S. with an ongoing commitment to foreign newspaper preservation and access, even as funding priorities shifted to the necessary preservation of domestic papers.
In 1987, the National Endowment for the Humanities and other organizations sponsored the “First International Symposium on Newspaper Preservation and Access” in a renewed effort to focus attention on foreign newspaper collections. This meeting brought together more than 100 librarians, scholars, and information professionals to gather information on newspaper collections in libraries around the world and to focus on common solutions to the numerous and varied challenges to newspaper collection and preservation.
A significant portion of the symposium was dedicated to examining the policies and problems of preserving newspapers at the national level. Representatives from national libraries or major research institutions reported on their respective country’s collection policy, shared experiences regarding access and preservation, and highlighted practical advice to other participants. The most resounding point made in these discussions was the need for cooperation and collaboration, both within countries and internationally, on newspaper collection, preservation priorities, and shared access to materials.
One decade later, CRL, in collaboration with the Association of Research Libraries, Council on Library and Information Resources (Commission on Preservation and Access), and the Library of Congress, convened the “Symposium on Access to and Preservation of Global Newspapers” (Washington, D.C., May 1997). The 1997 symposium sought to revisit the issue of newspaper collections with an ambitious agenda exploring and defining problems of collecting, storing, preserving, and providing access to international newspapers. The symposium was designed to provide a focused action plan through a framework that would coalesce many smaller efforts on a broad international basis. The participants were called upon to design a course of action that would guarantee acquisition of and access to international newspapers.
The participants of the 1997 symposium reaffirmed the importance of international newspaper collections and the need to pursue long-term collaborative solutions to the collecting, storing, preserving, and providing access to international newspapers. In response to the call to action posed in the symposium, a working group for ICON development was formed to study and discuss in more detail the complex factors affecting foreign newspaper collection and access. This group, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, met three times in 1998 and issued a final report with their findings (available at http://icon.crl.edu/history.htm).
The group found that although many countries have successfully instituted national preservation projects that include newspapers, many gaps in preservation and access of these materials still exist. The limited funding available to most countries’ preservationists is not sufficient to keep up with the volume of material existing (and being produced) and the inexorable process of deterioration. In some cases, notably in developing countries, preservation simply has not taken place due to economic or political factors.
It was the opinion of the group that research libraries and academic institutions must bear the burden of responsibility in making these important resources available to the larger global community. National or university libraries with the charge of preserving each country’s heritage must collaborate with other institutions and libraries, both within and outside their borders, to guarantee preservation of this material and to make it freely accessible. Work should be closely coordinated with other preservation activities worldwide to ensure proper coverage and avoid costly duplication of their efforts.
The task of global preservation of newspapers cannot be successfully accomplished without an organization committed to the long-range goals of centralized information gathering, coordinated prioritizing, and collaborative preservation of these materials. The culmination of the working group’s assessment was the recommendation to form a permanent body to monitor and coordinate an international effort of newspaper acquisition and preservation. In 1999, a permanent ICON steering committee was formed from among the charter participating institutions, including the Library of Congress, British Library, Library and Archives Canada, New York Public Library, University of Illinois, and the University of Washington.
ICON’s original and continuing goals are:
During its seven-year history, ICON has received generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). In doing so, NEH has signaled that the preservation of foreign newspapers and bibliographic access to them is vitally important for scholars and researchers today and in the future. ICON has honored this commitment in the pursuit of several core activities.
Preservation microfilming of important and underrepresented titles
Through NEH funding, ICON has preserved whole runs or significant parts of 40 titles from around the globe. These titles include historically valuable newspapers such as the Czech paper Národní Listy (Prague), considered one of the foremost dailies of its time. ICON’s efforts resulted in the only comprehensive filmed version for the years 1918-1931.
Other titles currently being filmed include the Eritrean Daily News and its companion publication, Il Quotidiano Eritreo, issued by the British Ministry of Information during the tumultuous years of the Second World War. The paper reflects the politics of British military rule in Eritrea and Ethiopia after the Italian colonial era. It reported war news for Allied personnel in Africa as well as for the local population. ICON’s preservation efforts with this title complement the holdings at the British Library.
ICON also identifies and preserves underrepresented titles, such as the relatively undocumented Vanguardia (Lima, Peru) which professed to be “the voice for what the people think.” ICON preserved a run from 1945-1963, an important period for Peru’s emerging democracy. Additionally, ICON preserves titles outside of the mainstream, such as the Lithuanian-language Argentinos lietuviu balsas (Buenos Aires) and Shanghai Times (Shanghai).
Institutions that contribute to ICON’s preservation microfilming with hard copy holdings receive film of their contribution at the end of the filming process. ICON has been fortunate indeed to have collaborative relationships with a number of U.S. institutions for this effort, including the Library of Congress, Stanford University, Harvard University, University of Texas, Columbia University, University of California, University of Connecticut, and Tulane University. CRL members can also receive loans of ICON film at no cost, or duplicates of film on a cost-recovery basis. A complete list of the titles preserved by ICON is available on ICON’s Web site at http://icon.crl.edu/titles.htm.
Creation of the Database of International Newspapers
The ICON Database of International Newspapers is a freely accessible electronic resource intended to provide reliable information on newspapers published outside of the United States. It includes bibliographic description of titles as well as specific information on institutions’ holdings of the same. The database serves as a central locus for information on international newspaper collections available in North American libraries and in selected libraries outside North America, providing a tool for resource discovery, access, and collection management. The database is available from ICON’s home page at http://icon.crl.edu.
The ICON Database of International Newspapers has been widely acclaimed for its value to librarians and researchers. The database, which was first released in 2002, is an integral mechanism for identifying existing material pertinent to scholars’ needs, collating resources from various institutions. Currently consisting of some 20,000 records, it also contains holdings and preservation data. Over the next several years, ICON will seek more partner institutions for additional record-sharing, with the parallel goals of providing holdings and preservation data for each bibliographic record. Ultimately, the ICON database will become the first place researchers go to obtain access information about non-U.S. newspapers.
Increasing access to international newspapers depends on the creation and sharing of bibliographic information in local and national catalogs or databases. Bibliographic control of foreign newspapers is a resource-intensive activity that requires language or area specialization in addition to high-quality cataloging skills. ICON’s role as an advocate and support structure for original cataloging of international newspapers was an early goal of the project’s visionaries.
ICON provides high-quality bibliographic information for international newspapers by supporting and coordinating the cataloging of participating institutions. ICON has developed an innovative distributed cataloging workflow. Working with selected institutions that are seeking bibliographic control of their uncataloged foreign newspaper collections, ICON trains its staff and student workers to identify and provide detailed collation, informational, and bibliographic descriptions of their titles. ICON staff in turn take this information and create CONSER-level records which are distributed back to the holding institution and to the ICON database. In less than six months, 50 new records were created under this program from the holdings of the University of Illinois and the University of Connecticut. As ICON moves forward, it is expected that hundreds of new records will be added, greatly increasing the visibility of historic global newspapers.
Dissemination and coordination
The ICON Web site is increasingly becoming a centralized source of trusted information about the preservation and access of foreign newspapers. After a complete redesign in 2006, the Web site not only contains the ICON database but also a variety of resources, including a clearinghouse of international standards for newspaper preservation and bibliographic access. ICON is mounting information relating to project reports and presentations, links to newspaper informational sites, news and developments of current preservation projects, reference resources, and digitized guides. It is ICON’s goal that the Web site will become a vital and comprehensive stopping place for data about accessioning and preserving newspapers.
Creation of a long-range, sustainable business model and operating plan for ICON
ICON has been largely successful in pursuing the original objectives of the project. The database, cataloging, preservation activities, and clearinghouse services are all fully in process. In terms of future activities, ICON will remain focused on its objectives, expanding whenever need or opportunity makes sense. Such activities will include:
Another role ICON can play is in the management and protection of rights relating to the conversion and distribution of news resources in analog and digital formats. This point is particularly important, as libraries find that they must increasingly depend upon the cooperation of news publishers, micropublishers, and digital re-publishers to preserve and make newspapers widely available. Publishers control the rights to make use of newspaper content, notably the right to reproduce and reformat that content. Micropublishers and digital re-publishers have marketing and distribution networks that can disseminate materials archived by libraries to a wide audience.
In dealing with such organizations libraries must be able to protect the substantial investments they have made, and will continue to make, in the acquisition, storage, preservation, and maintenance of news content. They must also preserve their ability to make that content available to their constituencies over the long term.
Library interests are best protected when such dealings are governed by agreements or statutes that impose certain conditions upon the partner organizations. Agreements and, in the case of national depositories, deposit requirements should reserve certain rights for the library and establish certain terms that advance the custodial library’s preservation and access goals.
Hence, ICON might assist libraries to:
ICON has developed principles and terms for libraries to use in dealing with publishers, micropublishers, and digital re-publishers. Such terms, if used, will facilitate uniformity of practice in the community that would make the efforts of libraries acting independently more “interoperable.”
In addition to providing such information and tools, ICON might also serve as a consortium for collective dealings with the major publishers and digital re-publishers, functioning as a facilitator for the joint brokering of cooperative agreements. This is a more ambitious role but one that would enable ICON institutions to act in concert and hence have greater leverage in the marketplace.
ICON was envisioned to be a global initiative, involving national and local libraries from every region. In order to achieve this, an expansion of activity and articulation of the reciprocal benefits of the project must be undertaken. The Center for Research Libraries continues to provide support to the effort and eagerly welcomes expressions of interest from other organizations.
Linda Ronan is ICON Project Coordinator at the Center for Research Libraries.
E–mail: lronan [at] crl [dot] edu
© 2007 Linda Ronan