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December 13, 2004

Keeping older stuff

The National Library of Australia is hosting an international newspaper conference, organised jointly by the IFLA Newspapers Section and the National Library of Australia, in February 2005. The conference's aims are:
  • The promotion of awareness of newspaper collections in libraries in IFLA Member countries, and in Australia and in South East Asian Countries.
  • The need to publicise measures to promote access to newspaper collections
  • The importance of newspapers for researchers of all ages and backgrounds
  • To emphasise good practice for the storage of original newspapers
  • To raise awareness of the need to copy newspapers
  • To exchange information regarding projects, ongoing and planned, to digitise older newspapers.
For more information, and to register for the conference, please go to http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/newspapers/about.html.
Posted by belinda at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)

October 14, 2004

Work in progress

A new web page for finding newspapers online is at http://www.newspaperindex.com/. It's not complete -- the Australian section has very few papers listed. For Australian papers, you'd be much better off at Australian Newspapers Online (http://www.nla.gov.au/npapers/) but the newspaperindex site would be useful for finding papers from other countries. The site will be updated so perhaps the Australian section will expand then. The site also links to PressDisplay (http://www.pressdisplay.com/) which is a site like NewsStand (http://www.newsstand.com/) and NewspaperDirect (http://www.newspaperdirect.com/) for digital replicas.
Posted by belinda at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2004

Why can't a newspaper be more like a blog?

Barry Parr asks the question on his MediaSavvy blog (http://mediasavvy.com/). The five parter, which is fairly short, raises, among other things, the issues of RSS, trackbacks, allowing comment and keeping newspaper archives open with permanent URLs. He also stresses the importance of local or community content. The first piece is at http://mediasavvy.com/archives/000475.shtml. From there, you can link to the rest. Well worth a look. I like his take on news archiving. He says: "After a couple of weeks, they [online newspapers] remove stories not only from their home page, but from their Web site. The original URL is broken, and readers who followed a link to the story are invited to search the paper's archives for it and pay money to get a look at it." Not all newspapers work this way - the UK Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk/) has an open archive, and its existence probably drives a ton of traffic to its site that would more than make up for any lost revenue from selling articles.
Posted by belinda at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2004

Age has not wearied her

In 1854, one of Australia's great newspapers, The Age, was born. It is now celebrating its 150th birthday with a new site which includes a chronology and timeline, historical article snapshots and pictures, and events to celebrate the anniversary. Find it at http://150.theage.com.au/.
Posted by belinda at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2004

Catching them young

I Want Media (http://www.iwantmedia.com/) runs a question a day, and the latest is the $64,000 question: "What should newspapers do to attract younger readers?". An answer comes from Henry Scott, the managing director of free sheet Metro New York, whose target audience is 18- to 34-year-olds. Scott says that newspapers have to "understand this formula: Time + Money – Relevance = Lost Reader.". Young people want quick reads and content that's relevant to them, not their parents. The full answer is at http://www.iwantmedia.com/#onequestion. Lachlan Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer of News Corporation, said his company was making some progress in Australia with younger readers, with newspapers in education programs, special kits on elections and high school sports results. Murdoch was at a two-day meeting to stimulate newspaper readership among the young, where publishers from the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the New York Post exchanged views with European media leaders on shrinking newspaper circulation and the European and American media scene. eWeek has a report at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1588646,00.asp.
Posted by belinda at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2004

Size matters

The UK Independent newspaper may axe its broadsheet edition altogether by the end of June, according to a story in the Guardian's Media section. The paper has been carrying out regional trials of a tabloid format, and response to the tabloid has been favourable enough for the paper to consider dropping the broadsheet altogether. Circulation went up by 15.25% which means they must be doing something right. Murdoch's The Times soon followed suit with a tabloid version. The full story is at http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,7495,1207158,00.html but you will need to register to see it now. Don't be put off by that - registration doesn't take long and the Guardian is definitely worth it, if only for their brilliant (free) archive. For example, with this story, links to all previous stories on the topic, such as the Indy's tabloid launch, the Times going tabloid, are provided, making it easy to get the full picture in context.
Posted by belinda at 02:57 PM | Comments (0)

November 20, 2003

Front page view

If you want to see today's front pages from different countries around the world, have a look at PressDisplay (http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx). This is a new service from NewspaperDirect (http://www.newspaperdirect.com/) and it promises digital replicas of 160 newspapers from 40 countries minutes after they are published. Viewing the front page is free - to see more would require payment. Papers open within a browser - no extra software is needed. The Sydney Morning Herald is currently the only offering for Australia. Anyone wanting The Australian would need to get it via rival service NewsStand (http://www.newsstand.com/).
Posted by belinda at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

October 31, 2003

How to do successful print news

Steve Outing's latest Stop the Presses! column is called Building a Better Print Newspaper: Advice From the Online World. Outing says: 'A key ingredient to the "newspaper of tomorrow": Let the consumer decide how he wishes to receive the news, and offer it in many forms. Don't just offer a broadsheet print edition published once a day plus a Web site. Here's how the ideal newspaper company of tomorrow might be publishing:
  • Print broadsheet edition.
  • Print tabloid edition.
  • Digital-replica edition (for PC and Tablet PC reading), delivered daily.
  • Reformatted paper edition delivered digitally for output on home printers; delivered daily.
  • Web site, updated 24 hours a day (or as close to that as is practical).
  • E-mail edition, published daily.
  • E-mail alerts, published as required, 24 hours a day.
  • RSS feeds, updated 24 hours a day.
  • Wireless news alert service for cell phones and wireless PDAs.
  • Partnership with broadcast media, offering its video and audio reports on digital platforms.
  • Selected news coverage shared with partner broadcast media.
Sounds exhausting! Read teh full article at http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2011979
Posted by belinda at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)