Historical Newspapers Project Grows.

The article discusses ProQuest Information and Learning's Historical Newspapers project that was introduced in 2001. The project has made admirable progress, with 125 million documents expected to be digitized by June. The company's purpose, however, is not just to push content out onto the web in hopes that libraries can use it. ProQuest's philosophy is to take the end user into the creation process. Publications in the program include the New York Times (1851-2001), Wall Street Journal (1889-1997), Washington Post (1877-1988), Los Angeles Times (1881-1984), Chicago Tribune (1849-1984), Boston Globe (1872-1922), Atlanta Constitution (1868-1925), and Christian Science Monitor (1908-91). Rod Gauvin, ProQuest's senior VP, marketing and publishing, told LJ that the quality of the source material sometimes proved challenging as not all of the microfilm was in pristine condition, forcing ProQuest often to use multiple sources to produce a publication's complete run. Librarians had repeatedly told ProQuest they wanted a digitized newspaper project, recalled Joe Mills, ProQuest VP of manufacturing operations, but before tackling it the company had to look at the big picture and think through all implications.