The time has come again to start reviewing microfilm for our project! After selecting the titles to be digitized for this round, we place an order with company that houses our master negatives to have selected reels duplicated. These reels are then mailed to us to be reviewed for quality and completeness. This review process not only consists of noting the quality of the filmed newspapers but also compiling information (metadata) that will contribute to what information and how this information is displayed in Chronicling America and our digital collections here at the University of Florida. We call this process “collating” and make note of things such as title, changes in title, issue dates, how many pages each issue has, if an issue is missing, if pages of a certain issue are missing, etc. The film and their corresponding collation sheets are then sent to a vendor, who digitizes the content and delivers the digital material (on external hard drives) to us on a monthly basis.
The Florida newspaper title we decided to start with this phase was the Pensacola Journal. We worked on digitizing some of this title during Phase I and wanted to finish digitizing the run (an estimated 25,000pages). We anticipate having this newly digitized content available beginning in June 2016. This content will be available for free viewing on Chronicling America and the Florida Digital Newspaper Library.
100 duplicate microfilm reels to be used for our digitization project. These reels only contain Florida content and include the titles: Pensacola Journal, Ocala Banner, Daytona Daily News, and Lakeland Evening Telegram.
Strip of microfilm. Neat view of what the filmed newspaper pages look like pre-digitization.
The microfilm machine (ScanPro3000) that we use to view the content on the reels.
Screenshot of the program used to view the newspapers on reels. Displayed is a partial view of an issue of the Pensacola Journal.
“Sneak-peek” of the first issue to be digitize this phase: the Pensacola Journal January 1, 1915.
Screenshot of an Excel sheet used while collating.
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