UK's Information Management and Technology - January - March 2006
Scotsman.com Online Archive . . .Powered By Olive Software
OLIVE SOFTWARE INC., a leader in XML automation technologies that attempt to bridge the gap between the paper past and the digital future, has now made available in Europe the PipeX digitization services and ActivePaper suite of online publishing tools. Targeted at Europe's newspaper and magazine publishers, libraries and universities and other content owners, ActivePaper Archive provides long-term digital preservation, universal online accessibility to content and the potential to develop new revenue opportunities.
Olive's ActivePaper platform is already deployed by major publishers groups in Europe using the tools to deliver electronic versions of current newspaper and magazine issues, just as they appeared in print. With the introduction of ActivePaper Archive Olive's solutions now encompass the automatic transformation of content to an XML repository from various information resources - digital PDF, text, microfilm, and paper-based archive -as well as a robust solution for preserving and repurposing assets.
Steve Marks, Senior Sales Director of Olive Software, commented: "By providing content owners with the ability to publish their content in digital form over the Internet, making it accessible to the huge audience online, we are able to transform legacy data into valuable information that can be productized and resold, so turning what were once preservation centres into profit centres."
For publishers the launch of ActivePaper Archive provides them with the means to repurpose both current and historical archives and sell these to an expanded customer base of consumers, businesses, researchers and others. ActivePaper Archive is unique in preserving the full text of a newspaper electronically so that users can access it in its original format. It also enables full search and access to all components of a publication including articles, photographs and illustrations, as well as the advertising that appeared on the pages.
Readers and researchers benefit from unprecedented search capabilities delivered by ActivePaper Archive's implementation of XML technology, which enables searching by article, picture or advertisement.
The first commercial roll-out of a European digital archive to be implemented using ActivePaper Archive was The Scotsman Digital Archive which allows readers to search every edition of The Scotsman between 1817 and 1950. This is the first time a UK newspaper publisher has offered its entire archive in a fully searchable format to the general public.
Scotsman.com chose Olive's ActivePaper platform after a full evaluation of this and other solutions in a formal tender process.
Alistair Brown, general manager at Scotsman.com, said: "At Scotsman.com we are always looking at ways to communicate better with our audiences and are very open to new opportunities presented by technology ActivePaper Archive is the first product that offers preservation with accessibility. It preserves the newspaper electronically, in its original printed format, while allowing for unprecedented access to what used to be a 175-year offline research source. As the pilot site in Europe for ActivePaper Archive we worked very closely with the team at Olive to deliver a project which has resulted not only high praise form customers and industry peers but also a significant new revenue stream."
Due to limitations in the quality of the existing microfilm Scotsman.com commissioned UK Archiving to re-film the entire Run of The Scotsman back to 1817. The microfilm was then dispatched to Olive Software in batches to scan into digital format. There were many potential technical problems associated with working with old newspapers especially when digitizing including skewing, dots and spots, fading, yellowing, scratches, dense text, ink problems and fonts. Olive Software was able to work with the Scotsman.com to overcome all of these challenges and arrive at the best possible product given these technical limitations.
Steve Marks, senior Sales Director, Olive Software commented: "The award-winning scotsman.com is leading the way in digital archiving and we are extremely pleased with the result that we were able to help them achieve for the new online archive. Given the initial feedback that searchability is up to 90 per cent on The Scotsman archive, we are confident that content owners will see the benefits of publishing over the Internet as an additional revenue stream."
Alistair Brown said of The Scotsman Digital Archive, "The potential for digital archiving is huge. Just as a newspaper keeps us up to date with what is happening today, this archive is preserving the past for future generations to access. We have had a very positive response to the archive and we pacing to repay our investment within three years."
The Scotsman was launched in Edinburgh on 25 January 1817 as a weekly organ record and comment-in compact form. Other milestones in its development include:
January 1831 The first broadsheet edition with adverts on Page One
June 1855 The first daily edition, priced 1 penny.
February 1922 The first picture published.
April 1957 News replaces advertisements on page one.
March 2004 The Scotsman published the compact edition on Saturdays.
August 2004 The Scotsman publishes the compact edition Monday to Friday.
The Scotsman joins the roster of other Olive clients including the Financial Times, London's Daily Telegraph, Verdens Gang, Edipresse Suisse, Washington Post, Knight Ridder, Reed UK, CanWest Global, Times of India and many others.