The National Library of Sweden (KB) plans to discard approximately 2,200 shelf metres of newspapers and periodicals to create space for new material, according to multiple reports. About 1,000 shelf metres of the discarded material are older daily newspapers. The newspapers being discarded are duplicates, and one copy of each will remain.
The discarded newspapers have not yet been digitized. Only about 25% of Swedish daily newspapers in KB's collections are digitized, according to Emma Stockhaus, Head of Collections Management at KB. KB estimates it would need between 500 million and 1 billion SEK to digitize all its newspaper collections, Stockhaus told Dagens Nyheter.
Yes, that's the case. Our problem is that we have the funding we have, and a third of our budget goes to rental costs. It doesn't matter that we have all these duplicates if we don't have the funding to digitize them. The newspaper service is our largest service that we care about incredibly much. We would love to plug that hole.
Budget constraints are a key factor. According to Dagens Nyheter, Stockhaus described that one third of KB's budget goes to rental costs, and that KB currently only digitizes newly arrived material on an ongoing basis. She noted that it is an illusion to think the material will soon be digitized, as with current methods and funding, the newspapers will have time to rot before they are digitized.
We all realize that we won't be able to get funding for that. Today we only digitize newly arrived material on an ongoing basis.
It's an illusion that I think many live in, that this material will soon be digitized. But with current methods and funding, the newspapers will have time to rot before we digitize them.
Yes, very. This is very frustrating for all of us here, I think. It's not that we don't see the value in this duplicate collection, but we also need to create more space.