Digitization project preserving century of Catholic newspapers, newsfeeds

[rug]

A consortium of librarians and archivists have set out to preserve Catholic news publications from the last century. Catholic Research Resources Alliance has undertaken a massive project to digitize nearly a dozen of the United States’ top Catholic newspapers of regional and national importance.



A page from the National Catholic Welfare Conference news service titled "Catholic World in Pictures" that is being digitized by the Catholic Research Resources Alliance. The NCWC service was the precursor of Catholic News Service. (Credit: CNS/Bob Roller.)

Mark Pattison
February 2, 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Only pack rats would save copies of old newspapers. Or so you would think. But a consortium of librarians and archivists are preserving Catholic news from the last century.

As newspapers age, their pages get more brittle and fragile. And outdated technologies such as microfilm and microfiche keep those newspapers from being readily accessible unless you live near a big downtown library or a university that still has the machines needed to read that data.

Many Catholic newspapers, unlike their secular daily brethren, were not kept, maintained and preserved with the same level of passion, save for some diocesan archives.

To correct this situation, the Catholic Research Resources Alliance has undertaken a project to digitize nearly a dozen of the United States’ top Catholic newspapers of regional and national importance - the print runs of which, for some of them, go back more than a century.

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2017/02/02/digitization-project-preserving-century-catholic-newspapers-newsfeeds/

[hunter]

1. Very good, and they've thought of everything.

Correcting computer generated text created by Optical Character Generation is a big deal. For anyone who uses these archives, correcting text is one way of contributing to the project.

Distributed Proofreaders is a group that does that for the Gutenberg Project.

Today's featured item, Catholic News Service - Newsfeeds, 3 February 1930, has this article:

PROTESTANT WORK IN SOUTH AMERICA BRINGS A REBUKE

Bishop Guzman of Concepcion, Chile, Exposes Methods By Which Sectarians of United States Are Endeavoring To Subvert Catholic Faith In LatinAmerican Countries —Well Supplied With Gold They Make Material Appeals

(By N. C. W, C. News Service) Santiago, Chile, Jan. 22.—The Rt. Rev. Gilberto Fuenzalida Guzman, Bishop of Concepcion. has issued a pastoral letter entitled “The Present Protestant Campaign,” in which he makes a number of interesting disclosures concerning Protestant proselytizing in Latin America. “The Protestant sects of the United States, especially in recent years,” the Pastoral says, “seem to be obsessed with a determination and and unexplainable zeal to sow the seeds of| heresy in other nations.

--more--

http://thecatholicnewsarchive.org/cgi-bin/crra?a=d&d=cns19300203-01&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------

The more things change...

[rug]

2. Thanks for the link to Distributed Proofreaders.

At one point in my life I worked as a proofreader. I think I'll give them some time.