On 09/21/2013 07:59 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote:

We're looking at a collaboration where we might get newspapers from the 1850s. Can we upload these onto WikiSource? Any useful structural systems in place to handle this?

Newspapers are difficult, but not impossible. It has been done. Fortunately, newspapers from 1850 are often smaller than full-size 20th century broadsheet newspapers. The smaller, the more similar to a book, and the easier to handle in Wikisource currently.

Here is a (small, 3-column, 4-page) newspaper in Swedish for one day in 1836, http://sv.wikisource.org/wiki/Post-_och_Inrikes_Tidningar_1836-01-21 This is the transcluded page after proofreading. You can find each of the 4 pages by clicking the page numbers in the left margin. You can follow arrows to <-- previous and --> next day (20, 21, 22 January 1836). There is a Djvu file and an Index page for each day's issue.

I did a full month (January 1836) in May 2010. The starting/overview page has a calendar layout, http://sv.wikisource.org/wiki/Post-_och_Inrikes_Tidningar

Two full years (1836-1837) are uploaded as Djvu files to Commons if anyone wants to continue. (But I have not seen any interest in these 3 years.)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Post-_och_Inrikes_Tidningar_1836 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Post-_och_Inrikes_Tidningar_1837