Heritage Microfilm Announces Partnership With University of Virginia Library

The following is taken from today's Newspaper Archives newsletter:


Heritage Microfilm and the University of Virginia Library will team up to inspect, preserve, and digitize the University's international newspaper microfilm collection.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa (PRWEB) February 18, 2009 -- The University of Virginia Library, the research library system of this major university founded by Thomas Jefferson, has partnered with Heritage Microfilm to preserve and digitize their expansive foreign newspaper microfilm holdings. The first library at the University of Virginia was Thomas Jefferson's famous Rotunda, which he placed at the heart of his design for the university, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Heritage Microfilm will first verify the condition of each roll and the degree, if any, of vinegar syndrome or redox. Heritage will then work with the University Library team to repair and catalog each reel. NewspaperARCHIVE, digital brand of Heritage Microfilm, will then scan each reel of microfilm and index for Optical Character Recognition. The final newspaper images will be available via NewspaperARCHIVE website and NewspaperARCHIVE's institutional product NewspaperARCHIVE's institutional website.

"This project will make a valuable research collection even more widely available," said Barbie Selby, Research and Information Services Manager for the University of Virginia's Alderman Library. "These international newspapers will be used by historians, political scientists, sociologists and others to enrich their work and enhance their understanding of viewpoints from around the world."

This partnership is a part of the Heritage Microfilm international initiative, aimed at making the world's newspaper history available online.

"We're excited to be working with the University of Virginia Library," said Mike Willard, Director of Heritage Microfilm. "This is a unique collection of newspapers from around the world, and both students at the university as well as our members will benefit greatly from this valuable resource."

Interested parties from non-U.S. countries or U.S. institutions with international content can contact the international team at International@heritagemicrofilm.com.