Digitization project preserving century of Catholic newspapers, newsfeeds

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 And outdated technologies such as microfilm and microfiche keep those newspapers from being readily accessible unless you live near a big downtown library or a university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/