New York Times and Wall Street Journal to Digitize Archives

Posted on January 11, 2001

Bell & Howell, an information solutions and services provider, has announced agreements with The New York Times Company and Dow Jones & Company to provide digital archive services. According to the agreements, Bell & Howell will digitize some 3,500,000 pages of The New York Times (since 1851) and 1,700,000 pages of The Wall Street Journal (since 1889). The digital backfiles will be part of Bell & Howell's recently announced ProQuest Historical Newspapers project.

Each digitization is expected to be completed in 15 months, with monthly releases beginning in March 2001. The resulting database, which will be sold as an annual subscription to libraries and schools, will feature ASCII text and index searching, and will display article and full-page images.

The ProQuest historical archive will digitally reproduce every issue from cover to cover and will include photos, graphics, and advertisements along with the editorial content. Searchers will be able to enter terms (keywords, such as ``Hindenberg'' or ``Hooverville,'' or Boolean operators such as ``keyword(general motors) and doc_type(display ad)'' or ``title(lindbergh) and date(1927)'') to search the full file. A results list will supply bibliographic information, including date, page number, and writer's name. To see the text, the user chooses the article, and the article image is displayed. Users will also be able to display the full image of any page in any issue.

Janet Robinson, president and general manager of The New York Times newspaper, said: ``We have been working with Bell & Howell for the past 17 years to produce and distribute The Times on microfilm and are pleased to be continuing that relationship and extending it to embark upon this digitization project.''

``Making The Wall Street Journal available in full image format will provide library researchers with rich opportunities,'' said Robert F. Firestone, vice president, Dow Jones Interactive Publishing. ``We're excited about being able to offer searchers a complete look at past issues of the Journal -- in context and as originally published -- similar to microform products, but using the latest technologies.''