Impact of Promotional Events and Routes of Access on OurDigitalWorld’s Digital Newspaper Collection

A site traffic analysis study of 24 newspaper sites from OurDigitalWorld’s (ODW) digital newspaper collection and the Ontario Community Newspaper (OCN) aggregate site was completed between 2016 and 2018.  Digital newspapers provide access to past and current heritage news, vital statistics, and newspaper clippings.  Securing grants from government agencies is essential for local heritage organizations to launch, build, and maintain their digitization initiatives in order to ensure the continuity of local culture and heritage of the past to people of the future.  Thus, assessing the impact of (e.g. site usage, Web presence) and routes of Web access to digital newspaper collections is important to determine promotional strategies to increase usage and awareness of the collections.  Recommendations were made for ODW, public libraries, and heritage organizations to increase the Web presence and awareness of ODW’s digital newspaper collection and to educate users about the various uses of the newspaper sites. Keywords: Digital newspaper collections, site traffic analysis, web presence, user awareness, user educatio