Newspapers: Legal Deposit and Research in the Digital Era, edited by Hartmut Walravens

Newspapers: Legal Deposit and Research in the Digital Era. Edited by Hartmut Walravens. IFLA Publications ; 150.  Berlin: De Gruyter Saur, 2011. 341 pp. $150.00. hardcover ISBN 9783110253252.

In this collection of 30 papers, editor Hartmut Walravens has brought together an eclectic selection representing the state of legal deposit relating to newspaper publishing in many areas of the world that are currently underrepresented in library literature in the U.S.  Consisting of the papers of three separate conferences sponsored by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Newspaper Section, this collection includes reports from a conference in Mozhaisk, Russia, hosted by the Russian Book Chamber (Moscow); a satellite meeting hosted by the National Library of Sweden; and the World Library and Information Congress, held in Milan, Italy.

The book is organized into three sections, representing the three conferences from which the papers were drawn.  The first section includes papers presented at the conference in Sweden, and focused on a number of issues related to standards, collaboration, and digitization efforts.  The second section includes papers from the conference in Mozhaisk, and addresses issues related to legal deposit of newspapers in many of the former soviet republics and other countries.  Regions that are discussed include Russia, Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and others. Issues relating to the legal deposit of newspapers at the British Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France are also addressed by papers in this section.  With only a few exceptions, these papers are presented in both English and Russian.

Finally, the third section of the book includes a number of papers addressing how newspapers influenced the evolution of the modern state.  Of particular note is a paper by Krystyna Matusiak and Qasem Abu Harb that examines the effort to digitize the historical periodical collection in the library of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.  The book concludes with two indexes (subject and author) that cover the previous ten volumes published by the IFLA Newspapers Section.

This volume would be of interest to newspaper librarians, or to those who are investigating the state of newspaper legal deposit in any of the represented countries.  As the topic is fairly narrow and the price is quite high, this might be considered a marginal purchase for others.