ACURIL XL

Innovation and Informational Impact in the Caribbean:
Evidence Based Practice for the Library and Information Professional

Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana
JUNE 6-12, 2010

Poster Proposal

Title:
Caribbean Newspaper Digital Library: Disseminating and Preserving Records of Daily
Life

Sub-Themes:
Information Organization and Representation
Reference and Information User Services

Abstract:

The Caribbean Newspaper Digital Library (CNDL) is a cooperative digital library for
newspaper resources from the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. CNDL provides access
to digitized versions of Caribbean newspapers, gazettes, and other research materials on
newsprint currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections. CNDL will have
on-going newspaper digitization, expanding the geographic, temporal, political and
linguistic variety of the newspapers. This poster session will share the experiences of the
dLOC partners as they have worked to both digitally preserve their endangered
newspaper collections, preserve the new born digital newspapers and provide access to
both historical and current newspapers in new ways to the current generation of
researchers.

In July 2009, the Caribbean Newspaper Digital Library was awarded a prestigious four
year TICFIA grant, beginning in October 2009, to build the Caribbean Newspaper
Digital Library (CNDL). The Caribbean Newspaper Digital Library (CNDL) is
establishing a collaborative international digital newspaper library that will preserve and
increase access to valuable resources for the study of the Caribbean and the advancement
of Caribbean Studies. CNDL will be an umbrella for regional newspaper digitization
including literary news journals, traditional newspapers, government gazettes, and other
works in newsprint. The project partners will create a critical mass of endangered
resources that are currently available with only limited access to researchers.

CNDL is being built within the Digital Library of the Caribbean, with all partners taking
an active role in developing CNDL as a whole by digitizing materials; securing
permissions; providing and receiving training on digitization, metadata creation,
preservation, requesting permissions; conducting outreach; identifying and arranging

access to materials for digitization; cultivating new research initiatives with Caribbean
scholars for the newly accessible materials; and working to ensure sustainability of
CNDL by consolidating existing organizational and technical frameworks established by
the Digital Library of the Caribbean and assisting partners in incorporating newspaper
digitization into national public policy agendas and supporting secondary grant-writing
and other fundraising activities.

Presenters:

Brooke Wooldridge
Project Coordinator Digital Library of the Caribbean
Florida International University
11200 SW 8th St., GL 225A
Miami, FL 33199
Phone: 305.348.3008 Fax: 305.348.6579
Email: brooke.wooldridge@fiu.edu

Laurie Taylor
Interim Director
Digital Library Center
Smathers Libraries
University of Florida
P.O Box 117003
Gainesville, FL 32611 USA
Phone : 352 273 2900
Email: lautayl@uflib.ufl.edu