Phase 1 of the Global Press Archive Alliance initiative, funded by libraries like ours, is going strong. Here’s an update on current and future Open Access newspaper collections that will be released through the GPA:
- Imperial Russian Newspapers: The Alliance’s fourth open-access collection spans the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries and includes core titles from Moscow and Saint Petersburg as well as regional newspapers across the Russian Empire. A preliminary batch of 230,000 pages was released in April and can be accessed through East View’s Global Press Archive platform: https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/irn/.
- Southeast Asian Newspapers: Titles for the fifth open-access collection, focused on Southeast Asia, have been prioritized by Hao Phan (Northern Illinois), Larry Ashmun (Wisconsin), Fe Susan T Go (Michigan), Yati Barnard (Hawaii), and Zoë McLaughlin (Michigan State). In choosing titles for digitization, the selectors aimed to illuminate smaller, and under-publicized, Southeast Asian newspapers in the hopes that making these materials available open-access will lead to further engagement from researchers and institutions around the globe. Reels totalling 500,000 pages will begin to be digitized (by East View) this summer.
- South Asian Newspapers: GPA Advisory Group members recently approved South Asia as the geographic focus for the final open-access collection of Phase 1 of the GPA Alliance. A group of selectors from CRL member libraries is being assembled to prioritize an additional 500,000 pages for digitization, with the goal of having titles selected by September 2021.
In case you missed them, the first three OA collections released through the GPA Alliance are available now, and set up as database assets in our system:
- Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers: https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/lqrcn/
- Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers: https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/mena/
- Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers: https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/mena/