The Center for Research Libraries can report progress on the next phase of the World Newspaper Archive (WNA). Working with Readex, a division of NewsBank, CRL and its partner institutions expect to add three new collections to the WNA over the next eighteen months. The three collections are:

•  African Newspapers
• Slavic & East European Newspapers and
• South Asian Newspapers

Along with the recently released Latin American Newspapers, these three new historical collections will make more newspapers from the world’s regions available to the CRL community electronically. Guided by charter participants and the WNA advisory committee, CRL will select the content of these new collections from the international newspapers long collected and preserved in paper and microform by CRL and participating member libraries.  Implementation of the modules will begin this fiscal year, although the resources available and level of interest from member libraries will determine the size of the collections and the schedule of their release.  

As with the Latin American Newspapers, CRL and its partners are committed to providing sustainable access to a rich and diverse set of international scholarly resources. CRL will provide for the archiving of the microform and digital content of the collection to ensure continuous long-term accessibility of those materials to the community.