ICON Project and Database: Current Status & Background
Current Status
The International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON) project and its associated ICON Database are no longer actively supported as standalone programs at the Center for Research Libraries (CRL).
However, ICON’s core goals—promoting responsible stewardship of global newspaper collections, improving access to international news resources, and informing preservation decisions—have been integrated into CRL’s general collection development and management operations. Newspaper data, preservation considerations, and collaborative engagement with partner institutions are now addressed within CRL’s broader strategic frameworks rather than through a dedicated ICON initiative.
About ICON
History
Founded in 1999, ICON (the International Coalition on Newspapers) emerged as a cooperative effort among research libraries and archives committed to preserving and improving access to newspapers from around the world. Support for the project came from CRL, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and major national libraries including the Library of Congress, British Library, and Library and Archives Canada. ICON began with 13 charter members who shared a common mission to consolidate information about global newspapers and ensure their long-term preservation.
Purpose and Activities
ICON focused on strengthening newspaper preservation and access by:
- Developing the ICON Database of International Newspapers, which grew to nearly 30 million issue-level records covering over 175,000 titles, making it the largest single resource on newspaper preservation and digitization.
- Conducting analyses of major newspaper digitization initiatives to identify coverage gaps, overlaps, and preservation risks.
- Coordinating preservation microfilming, producing more than 1,000 reels encompassing 56 titles and nearly 975,000 pages.
- Enhancing discoverability of newspaper collections by creating and improving authoritative bibliographic and holdings records.
- Digitizing key reference resources on newspapers from various world regions.
About the ICON Database
Launched in 2002, the ICON Database became the most comprehensive directory of significant newspaper collections in print, digital, and microform formats. Initially focused on newspapers published outside the United States, it expanded in 2013 to include U.S. titles and digitized holdings.
The database was designed to support:
- Collection development and preservation decisions
- Interlibrary loan and resource discovery
- Digitization planning and risk reduction
- Identification of gaps in global newspaper coverage
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