Converting Digitized Newspapers to METS/ALTO: Is It Possible?

Written by Admin | Nov 29, 2024 11:15:00 PM

If your digitized newspapers are to be used and shared across platforms and survive into the future it is important to choose the most appropriate standards and best practices.

A large number of different formats, standards, and workflows are still used by newspaper digitization projects. They include well-known formats like PDF, as well as formats modelled around the requirements of specific access/hosting software, like CONTENTdm or the PR XML format used by Olive Software.

Since about 2007 quite clear metadata standards and best practices for newspaper digitization have emerged, namely

METS-Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard,
ALTO-Analyzed Layout and Text Object, and
Associated high-resolution images.

These standards have been adopted by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) in North America, the IMPACT project in Europe, and many others. If you are planning a newspaper digitization project we strongly encourage you to use METS/ALTO and the related standards and workflows.

But what if I’ve already digitized my newspapers to a different format?

In many cases we can help migrate existing collections from formats like PDF or PR XML to METS/ALTO. If you have an existing digitized newspaper collection and would like to discuss migrating to METS/ALTO please contact us.

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