The following is an announcement from ProQuest, Inc.:
The ever-expanding ProQuest is growing further: the publisher announced November 8 that it is digitizing the complete run of The Atlanta Constitution from its beginnings in 1861 to 1925 as part of its ongoing Historical Newspapers project, which already sports The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times.
"In each subsequent year of the agreement," the company said, "another three years of content will be added." The newspaper publisher will retain rights to distribute the historical content to the consumer market. "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a reputation for excellence and a shared history from two independent journalistic voices, The Atlanta Constitution and Atlanta Journal, which merged in 2001," said Ron Klausner, ProQuest's president.
The digitization includes the entire content of each issue, including photos, graphics, and advertisements. ProQuest said searchers will be able to enter keywords to search the full file and the results list will "supply bibliographic information, including date, page number, and author's name (where provided)." To see the text, users choose the article and the image is displayed. Users also will be able to display the full image of any page in any issue. The database will be completely browseable by issue, allowing searchers to browse page by page as they would a printed paper, ProQuest said.
Note: ProQuest's Historical Newspapers collection can be viewed online at many libraries. The company does not sell to private individuals.
