Project Status: Check back here for progress updates and calls for specific volunteer tasks when needed. If you are interested in being a part of this project, please email Jerry Martinek.
(October, 2024): With the exception of the need for a redo of 7 rolls, all 335 rolls in our possession have now been digitized and backed up to our cloud archive. Our fund raising campaign is approaching $10,000 and we could use your additional support! We have finalized how we will present the issues to our members in pdf format. We plan to release the first set of issues for our members to view on about December 1st. We have just over 1.5 years of issues created in pdf and (fingers crossed) will increase that to about 3 years by the rollout about December 1st. We have documented the detailed steps that it takes to convert the TIFF images, over 600 created from each roll of microfilm, to a pdf issue for each day contained in the roll that will be viewable by our members. We are almost ready to call together the team of members who have volunteered to help and give them the training needed to enable us to greatly increase the speed with which we publish more issues. We have a quote from the Library of Congress to order the next set of microfilms covering 1940 through 1955. Have we been busy? YOU BET! Watch for a MailChimp notice announcing the date when you can begin to explore the issues we are posting....December 1 (or about) HERE WE COME!!!!
(August, 2024): Most of the second 100 rolls of microfilm have now been digitized as 600 dpi TIFF files. We have also ordered the third set of microfilm rolls which will take us in 1941--that's an additional 135 rolls, a total so far of 335 rolls purchased. There are 550 rolls in the complete set. Since we have decided on the creation of ebooks as our initial way to allow members to view the issues, we are in conversation with our vendor for the purchase of some additional licenses so more volunteers can begin to create the ebooks and we can make them available to members. Be patient--things are moving well for an all-volunteer organization!
The June issue of Naše rodina included an ad asking members to donate to the project and to date we have received some very positive responses! THANK YOU to all who are contributing to this beautiful project!
We also submitted a request to the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They provide grant funds to support Czech cultural heritage abroad, and hopefully this request will fall within their guidelines.
(July, 2024): The Kramerius test was not the clear-cut success we had hoped for. In the end, we found the behind the seen architecture was not well aligned with our needs. We have now begun to focus on the use of e-books which will allow members to search the newspaper in monthly segments. We've tested many issues and the software we have to create the ebooks is able to handle the full-size newspaper images. OCR works fairly well, but the combination of a difficult font, Czech diacritics, and many images having a lot of "noise" on the page causes some issues. But! At least we will have a solution where we can begin to share the images for all our members to begin using.
(April, 2024): The second 100 rolls of microfilm have arrived and have been delivered to the vendor to create the TIFF images for archiving and future use. Pete Landry has accepted the role of Project Manager for the endeavor. We are exploring the use of the open source platform used by the Kramerius digital library for potential application in this project.
(March, 2024): The CGSI executive committee authorized the purchase of more microfilms and and on 3/19 an order was placed to purchase the second 100 rolls covering the timeframe of roughly 1911 through 1924. Those films are estimated to be shipped by the end of April. Carol Smetana is working on two approaches to gain additional funding to support the project, one being through grants and the other being an internal fund raising campaign. More details will be available in April.
(March 1, 2024): The test of the digitization process was successfully completed in February whereby we created TIFF images of each of the images in the 100 microfilms purchased. Once we got the TIFF images from the vendor, they had to be renamed and uploaded to our shared drive as archive images. Then a second set of the images was created to act as our "working set". We are still exploring how we can best post each issue to the website. We know we want to provide searchable (OCR) images. We believe we will need to at least initially post each issue as a pdf, but we are exploring software that may allow us to post the issues as ebooks to allow our members to read the issues and capture select information, but not have to download large pdf files. We are now also exploring the purchase of the next set of films to take us through the early 1920's.
(January 2024): The first 100 microfilms (1891-mid 1911) are in our hands and next week we will be testing the quality of the digital images. If the resolution is acceptable, we will be immediately digitizing all 100 roles. Stay tuned!
(November 2023): Plans for the digitization of individual issues are being organized.
