Access to Print, Digitized, and Born-Digital Newspapers from Africa: The North American / Global Conundrum

Newspapers and news media from Africa are widely considered valuable primary source research materials for scholars. Research institutions in North America—such as the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), the Library of Congress, and major academic libraries—have built up over several decades of investment large collections of African newspapers in print and microform through subscription, microfilm preservation, and digitization. However, changing models of access, combined with the challenges and cost of acquiring and storing print newspapers from overseas, has resulted in drastic reductions in the amount of print newspapers currently collected in the U.S. and Canada for research purposes. North American libraries have placed a premium on electronic access to content. However, a large share of news produced in countries in the global South continues to be disseminated in print. To highlight the challenges facing academic institutions in providing access to historical and current news content from Africa, the author examines the present state of digital accessibility, drawing from two recent CRL studies: a 2013 survey of African online newspapers and a 2015 study of the state of newspaper digitization worldwide. The author highlights some of activities CRL and North American libraries have pursued towards broader availability of international news content. However, these measures are as yet not enough to sustain access to the wealth of current and historical news resources. The author argues that deeper, strategic cooperative investment is required by libraries in Africa as well as elsewhere in the world to pursue broader access to African news through such activities as digitization, licensing, and harvesting born-electronic material.

非洲的报纸与新闻媒体，向来被学界视为极具价值的一手研究资料。北美地区的研究机构——例如研究图书馆中心（Center for Research Libraries）、美国国会图书馆以及各大高校图书馆——历经数十年持续投入，通过订阅、缩微胶片保存与数字化等途径，积累了规模庞大的印刷版与缩微版非洲报纸馆藏。然而，伴随获取模式的变革，加之从海外获取与储存印刷版报纸所面临的重重挑战与高昂成本，当前美加两国用于科研目的的印刷版报纸馆藏已大幅缩减。北美图书馆愈发重视内容的电子获取渠道。但全球南方国家产出的大量新闻内容，仍以印刷形式进行传播。为凸显学术机构在提供非洲历史与当代新闻内容获取渠道方面所面临的困境，作者依托两项近期由该中心开展的研究展开分析：一是2013年针对非洲在线报纸的调研，二是2015年关于全球报纸数字化现状的研究。作者梳理了CRL与北美图书馆为提升国际新闻内容可获取性所推行的各类举措。但截至目前，这些举措仍不足以保障对丰富的当代与历史新闻资源的获取。作者提出，无论是非洲还是全球其他地区的图书馆，都需要开展更具深度的战略性合作投入，通过数字化、授权许可以及采集原生电子素材等方式，实现非洲新闻资源更广泛的可获取性。