This presentation from Maria Sorjonen and Majlis Bremer-Laamanen from the National Library of Finland.

Newspapers well known for being fragile, so digitisation historical material always challenging. But why digitise e-born files from paper prints?

COMELLUS project. Beleives that for longterm preservation Microfilm is still the way to go. However, for access electronic clearly what is needed. Vision of access to all newspaper content from single service

To achieve this had to do deals with publishers and software house. Looking to digitise the historical content from partner newspapers, develop software for automatic delivery of the printe files and also for automatic metadata collection. Then looking to enrich the digital material (DocWorks?)

Getting electronic originals means Logical structure and metadata preserved along with the physical pages; no need for OCR correction; no need for manual articla structure construction; no delay from deposit to online access.

Lots of benefits both to libraries and to the newspapers – but a big barrier = Copyright. Solution based on Finnish law of ‘extended collective licensing’ – can cover material even if rights holders cannot be reached – administered by an organisation. This agreement covers journals/newspapers/photographs (although not books).

However, still plenty of issues to consider. EU law in this area continues to develop. The extended collective licensing approach in Finland allows for collective negotiation and application of rights which avoids the need to engage with each rights holder individually – makes it manageable.