Washington Research Library Consortium

I visited the American University digital collection, (http://wrlc.olivesoftware.com/Default/Skins/WRLC/Client.asp?Skin=WRLC&GZ=T&AW=1193258927859&AppName=2) part of the Washington Research Library Consortium, which used Olive's Active paper to digitize its student newspaper, the American Eagle.

Selection Procedure: Certain issues from each month were digitized. The one I chose comes from December 16, 1927. My article concerned the choice of a new captain for the football team. All of the objects selected are copies of the American Eagle student newspapers from 1925 to 1996.

Object Characteristics: Newspapers from the American University American Eagle student paper. The Olive Active paper allows users to choose whichever article in the newspaper they would like to see in more detail. Active Paper first places a box around the selected article. Then, if the user wants to see that article he or she simply clicks on it.

Metadata: Due to the very user-friendly that Olive's Active Paper provides, an overly large amount of metadata is not necessary. There is a screen that allows the user to choose an American Eagle paper from a particular year, month and date. However, once that is done, Active Paper takes over and makes interaction with the digitized newspaper fairly straightforward. If the user moves the mouse cursor over an article and does not know to click it to open that article, Active Paper causes a small box with "click to open this article" to appear along with the box around the given article.

Intended audience: I believe, first and foremost, the intended audience for the digitization of the American University American Eagle Student newspaper is the students at American University. Furthermore, because it is part of the Washington Research Library Consortium, Washington DC area researchers are also targeted. Nevertheless, the fact that the American Eagle digitized newspapers are on the web and that they make use of Olive's Active Paper, opens their perusal to internet surfers everywhere. I believe Active Paper is the wave of the future for the digitization of newspapers or magazines because it such an easy to use and comfortable interface.