Digital Migrations: A Case of Turn-of-the-Century Chicago-Immigrant Newspapers

This paper will illustrate a case study on the digitization and preservation of non-English newspapers at a large research institution in the United States, providing an overview of challenges present throughout the newspaper digitization lifecycle while focusing on aspects unique to non-English newspaper titles. The case study looks at the importance and relevance of the content; evaluates complications found during collation, such as identifying supplemental editions or standard weekly supplements; intricacies of updating cataloging records to accurately provide descriptive access; actions toward the long-term preservation and sustainability of digital content and digital access portals; errors and solutions for non-English OCR; and limitations of findability imposed by search engines. To best demonstrate the IDNP’s work towards access and sustainability, the paper will provide an overview of the U of I’s digital newspaper portal, Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections, and digital preservation efforts with the in-house digital repository, Medusa. These practical workflows will showcase the innovative role IDNP plays in newspaper reformatting best practices.