SmallTownPapers is an online gateway to newspapers from small town America - past and present. Working with publishers from across the country, the company digitally scans current and archived newspapers and then provides online access. Through the SmallTownPapers website, the newspaper archives can be searched by keyword or phrase and viewed as originally printed. SmallTownPapers, Inc. is based in Seattle, Washington.
June 11, 2009
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is SmallTownPapers?
A: SmallTownPapers, Inc. is a Seattle-based company dedicated to creating searchable digital copies of newspaper archives from small community newspapers across the United States. SmallTownPapers works with publishers to create high quality scans of printed newspaper archives then make them searchable and accessible online.
Q: How is SmallTownPapers different from other digital newspaper archives?
A: A traditional searchable archive is a text file and provides the reader with the ability to search published articles (text). SmallTownPapers creates images of superior quality by scanning directly from the printed newspaper pages. Viewers see the newspaper just as it was printed and can search for any term appearing on the page in articles, photographs and advertisements.
Q: Who is interested in accessing the SmallTownPapers archives?
A: The archives of newspapers from America’s small towns possess incredible value to researchers, genealogists, historians, governments and legal professionals. SmallTownPapers creates high-quality images of the newspapers and places them in an internet accessible digital archive that is completely searchable. Millions of pages of information can be accessed from a single source.
Q: Aren’t these newspapers creating their own digital archives?
A: While many small newspapers now create digital files going forward, SmallTownPapers works with publishers to digitize their historic archives. SmallTownPapers provides the technology and production services that publishers can use to place their archives online.
Q: How many newspapers have their archives available on the SmallTownPapers website?
A: Currently there are more than 300 newspapers from 48 states represented in the SmallTownPapers Collection.
Q: Which newspapers can place their archives on the SmallTownPapers website?
A: The newspapers must be small community-based publications serving a certain geographic area, and the newspaper must produce its own content.
For more information contact SmallTownPapers.
August 29, 2005
SmallTownPapers Unveils Archive Management Tool for Newspaper Publishers
For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Karen Tarica,
(206) 369-0855
LN89@aol.com
SEATTLE, WA - August 29, 2005 - SmallTownPapers, Inc. is pleased to introduce ArchiveInABox, turn-key archive management for newspapers. ArchiveInABox is a complete system, created by SmallTownPapers, that publishers can use to move their printed and microfilmed newspaper archives into a high-quality digital format that is made accessible online.
“Newspaper publishers across the country expressed interest in the simple yet powerful SmallTownPapers system created for moving printed archives from small town newspapers to digital format providing access to newspapers that previously had been inaccessible to anyone outside the newspaper office,” said Paul Jeffko, president and founder of SmallTownPapers. “With ArchiveInABox, we are able to offer that system to a new group of customers who are searching for an easy and cost-effective way to digitize, access, search, distribute and market their collection of bound book archives.”
With ArchiveInABox, a newspaper publisher simply places their bound book archives in a provided military grade shipping box. SmallTownPapers handles everything for the publisher including shipping, logistics, scanning, post-processing, distribution and marketing. The archive books are scanned intact and safely returned to the publisher. Once the scanning process has been completed, post-processing software including Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used to create fully-searchable digital images of the newspaper pages which are uploaded to the appropriate internet servers. The online newspaper pages appear exactly as they were printed and a search will locate and highlight keywords appearing in articles, photograph captions and advertisements.
“This is an absolutely necessary extension of our newspaper,” said Tim Robinson of Robinson Newspapers in Seattle which is in the process of working with SmallTownPapers to digitize a portion of its archives dating back more than 80 years. “We embraced this concept because it serves a wide audience of interest.”
For Robinson Newspapers, the digitizing project means peace of mind knowing the bound archives can remain in storage - safe and intact. The publishers know that now there are few reasons anyone will ever need to thumb through the delicate, aging pages of the bound books. Instead, newspaper reporters, researchers, genealogists and others needing information about their community’s history have immediate access to a high-quality, easy-to-search, online version of the newspaper.
Publishers, including Robinson Newspapers, appreciate the careful handling of their bound volume archives. For the scanning of the delicate books, SmallTownPapers contracts with Maryland-based Crowley Micrographics which is known for its experience, expertise and high quality standards in the “non-destructive” scanning of old and fragile bound books and large format materials such as newspapers. The company uses specialized, high-resolution, overhead scanners created by Zeutschel, a global leader in high performance scan systems.
Currently, SmallTownPapers has produced 300,000 pages of newspaper archives dating back to the 1800s.
About SmallTownPapers SmallTownPapers is an online gateway to newspapers from small town America - past and present. Working with publishers from across the country, the company digitally scans current and archived newspapers and then provides online access. Through the SmallTownPapers website, the newspaper archives can be searched by keyword or phrase and viewed as originally printed. SmallTownPapers, Inc. is based in Seattle, WA. For more information visit www.smalltownpapers.com.
|
|