Press Release
FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE EXPANDS ACCESSIBLITY OF ITS STUDENT NEWSPAPER TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN USING OLIVE'S AUTOMATED TRANSFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.
DENVER, Colorado, April 13, 2006 - Franklin and Marshall's website featuring the digitized archive of the student newspaper, The College Reporter, has added 23 more years to its collection. The digital database now contains a 37 year span, covering a historic period from 1964 to 2001.
Having completed two phases successfully, the library hopes to eventually digitize the entire collection of the student newspaper, a publication that first went into print in 1873 under the title of College Days. The next phase of the project will involve digitizing the years 1940 to 1963. Christopher Raab, Archives & Special Collections Librarian at the Shadek-Fackenthal Library, commented on the significance of the process and the value of collection's accessibility to the public domain: "Since the initial launch, the online student paper has been accessed by alumni from across the country; been incorporated into the curriculum of history and American studies courses; been heavily utilized by campus administrators in alumni affairs, development, athletics, and college communications; and has been employed by former staff writers to build web-based writing portfolios."
To view the Reporter, Please Click Here.
The issues of long-term preservation of offline materials, investing in software that avoids obsolescence, public accessibility, metadata collection and versatile searchability are among the most important when it comes to the subject of digitization. Kim Dail, VP marketing, Olive Software, shares the library's enthusiasm over the exponentially increasing value of the collection: "Olive is proud to be a part of The College Reporter's success. The company's unique features (such as search, article clipping, keyword indexing, and customizable front end application) and its XML based technology are vital components in serving the greater goal of preserving and sharing historically important documents."
The College Reporter is a prominent collection among the growing number of educational institutions across the United States and abroad that are benefiting from Olive's solutions, such as Penn State University, Ithaca College, Brooklyn Public Library, and Oberlin College to name a few.