Newspapers on the Mind - Around the World

Book excerpt: The Round Table on Newspapers (later: Section on Newspapers, now Newsmedia Section) of IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) has been the authoritative group of experts for newspaper matters within the international library community. It has been involved in the major newspapers projects like TIDEN, NewsPlan and US Newspaper Program, developed guidelines for best practice in preservation microfilming and digitisation, advised librarians and fostered international cooperation. In a series of outreach conferences from Shanghai to Santiago de Chile and from the Arctic Circle to Canberra it emphasized the importance of newspapers as indispensable historical source material and advocated their cataloguing and preservation. It did not only become an authority regarding newspaper digitisation but also legal deposit, born digital newspapers and hybrid forms. While the present volume documents the Round Table's work for a relatively short time span it was exactly that brief period that revolutionised newspapers, their preservation and their availability to readers (full text, text mining). The volume comprises reminiscences of some members of he Round Table, the minutes of the business meetings, and analytic index to the ten volumes of proceedings of the Conferences and a facsimile of the Newsletter of the Round Table. With many photographs in colour.