§ Mr. DismoreTo ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) in the national newspaper collections, how many(a) national and (b) regional newspaper titles have (i) been copied onto microfilm and (ii) remain to be copied; and, on present estimates, how long it is forecast that it will take to complete the task; [89107]
385W(2) for each of the last five years, how many (a) national and (b) regional newspaper titles have been copied onto microfilm by the national newspaper library collections. [89108]
§ Mr. Alan HowarthOn current microfilming, since 1986, the policy of the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale has been to film all issues of UK daily and weekly national and regional newspapers received through legal deposit.
The following numbers of newspaper "titles" were in publication and received through legal deposit in each of the five years:
Year National titles Regional daily and weekly titles 1994–95 31 627 1995–096 31 694 1996–97 30 711 1997–98 30 709 1998–99 30 706 The serial nature of newspaper publication means that the transfer of newsprint to microfilm is a continuous process. The transfer of issues of national titles to microfilm has been given high priority and this programme is up-to-date. Material awaiting transfer from issues of regional newspaper titles would constitute five years' microfilming at present output levels.
Retrospective transfer of newsprint to microfilm is undertaken in response to customer demand (self-funded) and in the light of conservation requirements within allocated budgets.
The total number of preservation frames microfilmed from newspapers in the last five years is:
Year Number frames 1994–95 9,976,710 1995–96 11,127,221 1996–97 15,502,623 1997–98 11,608,279 1998–99 8,288,201 The Library has increased its allocation for current and retrospective microfilming in 1999–2000 by 37 per cent. over the previous year with a view to targeting production of 11.5 million frames. Further increases are planned for the following two years.