ELSEVIER
Industry : Media & Publishing
Location : The Netherlands
Project : Digital Archiving
Scope : +500 000 pages
The Preservation of Dutch Journalistic History
X-CAGO proudly digitises the renowned publication Elsevier Weekblad (EW) and in so doing ensures it is preserved for future generations. EW is the best-known Dutch weekly news magazine, whose first issue appeared on 27 October 1945. Its monthly predecessor, the beautifully produced issue – Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift (Elsevier’s Illustrated Monthly) was published from 1891 until 1940 when it was discontinued due to the German occupation.
It is highly sought after by collectors. The authors of Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift included a number of renowned Dutch writers such as Louis Couperus, Jan Slauerhoff, Jan de Hartog and Herman Heijermans, all of whom contributed articles that were often illustrated by leading artists. The journal is now experiencing a new lease of life with the entire fifty-year archive having been digitised by X-CAGO.
The Project
In the case of Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift, every single page from the journal’s half-century of production was scanned and uploaded to an image database. X-CAGO’s technologies ensured that the scans were as faithful to the original as possible, based on the pages in the bound volumes. The entire database is searchable by entering specific words or by searching by author, title, illustrator, caption, year, part or edition. The contributors list contains the names of thousands of illustrators and authors. The end result is the preservation of the content so that it can be enjoyed, studied and read by generations to come.
The creation of the website, the digitisation of the content and its searchability were made possible by a donation from the publisher Reed Elsevier. The project is an important contribution to making Dutch cultural heritage publicly accessible.
The project to digitise Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift was characterised by a number of key features:
- Enabling access to literary and journalistic works – in their original form – from an important period in Dutch history
- Volume: more than 500,000 pages in a non-standard print format
- Technically innovative elements: large-area scanning in colour
- The ability to access each content item individually
- Full searchability (including spelling variants)
- Ensuring the highest of quality for each item
The Solution
With X-CAGO’s technology, users can extract individual articles and advertisements from scanned pages. The underlying technology is unique and has been patented. The software then creates XML files for each individual page, article or photo. This ensures that users are only delivered search results for the articles that actually match their search query.
X-CAGO was responsible for the technical implementation of the entire project. This involved three main elements: (1) scanning, (2) item-level segmentation and (3) publishing the full pages via a free website. Each page was scanned in colour directly from the original files using state-of-the-art video scanners. This ensured that the valuable original publications were not damaged and that the authenticity of the source material could be digitally matched.
Archive ExPress is the name of X-CAGO’s software solution for making (printed) media available on the Internet. Among other things, Archive ExPress enables users to:
· flip through the pages;
· enlarge individual articles or advertisements with a single click;
· search within the collection or in the entire collection for the full article text.
Conclusion
Through advanced digitisation technology, X-CAGO transformed decades of Elsevier’s historical publications into a fully searchable, beautifully preserved digital archive. More than half a million pages, rich with journalism, illustrations, and cultural heritage, are now easily accessible to researchers, readers, and future generations.