BAnQ speeds up newspaper digitization project

The Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) has adopted an ambitious program to digitize all 5,873 Quebec newspapers published since the 17th century and to speed up the process.

BAnQ logoAccording to an article in the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir, BAnQ’s virtual newspaper collection currently contains 248 digitized newspapers of which half (132) are available online.

Claire Séguin, director of the national and heritage collections at BAnQ, told Le Devoir the Quebec archives is putting a lot of importance on digitizing all newspapers. She does not know how long it will take to complete the program nor how much it will cost.

Many of us would love to see the Montreal Star on the list of priorities, but I expect many French newspapers will be digitized first.

BAnQ’s digitization program began in 2003. At the time, a review of 34,000 consultations over three years revealed 70 percent of the requests were for the same 17 newspaper titles, and these newspapers were the first digitized.

A list of titles of newspapers and magazines available online and links to them can be found on BAnQ’s website. Several English newspapers are also in the collection. To read a newspaper, click on the title. Then select the year, month, and date. To enlarge the image of the newspaper to full screen, click on Affichage plein écran.

Le Devoir‘s article, BAnQ de données, is available here.

Thanks to blogger Vicky Lapointe for sharing this story on Facebook.

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2 Responses to BAnQ speeds up newspaper digitization project

  1. Ellen says:

    i trust this will include weeklies as well. I would dearly love to see the Stanstead Journal digitized.

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