World newspapers to be digitized

Genealogists looking for information on family in countries around the world will be happy about this Readex plan to create a web-based world newspaper archive of thousands of historical newspapers published outside the US.

The Latin American collection will be the first made available.

JUNE 26, 2008 (NAPLES, FL) — Readex, a division of NewsBank, and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) announced today that they will create the world's largest, fully searchable digital archive of international newspapers. The World Newspaper Archive will provide students, teachers and scholars unprecedented access to historical newspapers published outside the United States, advancing research and offering new insights across wide-ranging academic disciplines.

"NewsBank offers the greatest combination of expertise and capabilities to provide our members sustainable access to historical news content," says Bernard F. Reilly, president of the Center for Research Libraries. "By partnering with its Readex division in this cooperative effort, we plan to systematically digitize and deliver over the Web the foreign newspapers held by CRL and other major newspaper repositories."

The first offered resource will be some 35 titles of Latin American papers (1805-1922) and some 1 million pages from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and other countries. Among the papers are La Prensa (Buenos Aires), O Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo), Mercurio (Santiago), La Prensa (Havana), Diario de Centro America (Guatemala City), Daily Chronicle (Georgetown, Guyana), Mexican Herald (Mexico City), El Peruano (Lima), Port of Spain Gazette (Port of Spain), and the Venezuelan Herald (Caracas).

Future collections will include Africa, South Asia and elsewhere. According to the release, users will be able to cross-search the World Newspaper Archive, America's Historical Newspapers, Early American Newspapers and Hispanic American Newspapers.

Participating CRL members will enjoy permanent access to the Archive; Readex will offer access to others. Charter participants include Harvard University, McMaster University, New York Public Library, Princeton University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign, University of Texas, University of Washington and Yale University.

The Center for Research Libraries is an international partnership of over 240 universities, colleges and independent research libraries. It supports advanced research and learning in the humanities, sciences and social sciences by ensuring the survival and accessibility of source materials vital to those disciplines.

For more than 50 years, the Readex name has been synonymous with research in historical materials and government documents. Recognized by librarians, students and scholars for its efforts to transform academic scholarship, Readex offers a wealth of Web-based collections in the humanities and social sciences, including the Archive of Americana and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports.

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