Historic Newspapers in the Digital Age: Search All About It!

Description

In recent years, cultural institutions and commercial providers have created extensive digitised newspaper collections. This book asks the timely question: what can the large-scale digitisation of newspapers tell us about the wider cultural phenomenon of mass digitisation? The unique form and materiality of newspapers, and their grounding in a particular time and place, provide challenges for researchers and digital resource creators alike. At the same time, the wider context in which digitisation of cultural heritage occurs shapes the impact of digital resources in ways which fall short of the grand ambitions of the wider theoretical discourse. Drawing on case studies from leading digitised newspaper collections, the book aims to provide a bridge between the theory and practice of how these digitised collections are being used. Beginning with an exploration of the hyperbolic nature of technological discourses, the author explores how web interfaces, funding models and the realities of contemporary user behaviour contrast with the hyperbolic discourse surrounding mass digitisation. This book will be of particular interest to those who want to investigate how user studies can inform our understanding of technological phenomena, including digital resource creators, information professionals, students and researchers in universities, libraries, museums and archives. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of illustrations Series preface Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction: “search all about it!” Methods for assessing impact User studies in the age of large-scale newspaper digitisation Summary 1 The myth of the new: theories of technological discourses Google Books: the universal library reimagined The role of the technological sublime Diffusion of innovations Mechanical reproduction and the end of the age of the author The city and information overload Reality and remediation Summary: waiting for the paradigm shift 2 Digitised newspapers: histories, contexts, behaviours The history of newspapers in the United Kingdom Issues for the identity of libraries in the digital age Existing research into online user behaviour Summary: concurrent discourses of digitisation 3 Exploring methods for evaluating user behaviour Methods for case study research Quantitative methods Qualitative methods Summary 4 Institutional impact of large-scale digitised collections Institutional impact Implications for user support Licensing and copyright: dual barriers to impact What role do libraries have in an age of large-scale digitisation? Summary: online access and the future of libraries 5 The impact of large-scale digitisation on users Users of large-scale digitisation Changing models of user behaviour Engagement with users of large-scale digitised collections Summary: where we’re going, we’ll still need readers 6 “Unequally free”: mapping public access to digitised collections Innovative technologies, longstanding tensions Mapping the digitised divide Inequalities in access by English Public Library authority Summary: the digitised divide in action 7 Conclusion: where we’re going, we’ll still need Ranganathan Introduction Access to digitised library collections Recommendations The stakes for digitised collections Summary: library digitisation as a public service Index