Sigurdur/timarit-ocr

Timarit OCR

Dataset Description

This dataset contains page-level images extracted from historical Icelandic newspapers and periodicals sourced from timarit.is, Iceland's national digital archive of newspapers and magazines. Each sample pairs a page image with structured OCR output, providing ground-truth data for Icelandic historical documents.

OCR transcriptions were generated using rednote-hilab/dots.ocr, a state-of-the-art document OCR model.

Dataset Summary

• Language: Icelandic (is)
• Source: timarit.is — Iceland's National and University Library digital archive
• OCR Model: rednote-hilab/dots.ocr
• Format: Images (PNG) with structured JSON OCR output
• Primary Use Case: OCR training and evaluation for historical Icelandic text

Supported Tasks

• OCR / Image-to-Text: Pairs of document images and their transcribed text for training or evaluating OCR models on historical Icelandic typography.
• Document Layout Analysis: Page-level images suitable for detecting text regions, columns, and other layout elements typical of historical Nordic newspaper printing.

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Dataset Structure

Data Fields

Field	Type	Description
image	Image	Page-level scan of the source document (505px–3370px wide)
imagewidth	int	Width of the image in pixels
issue_id	string	Identifier for the specific issue (1–6 chars)
page_name	string	Name of the page within the issue (178 unique values)
publication_id	string	Identifier for the publication (1–4 chars)
year	int32	Publication year
ocr	string	Structured JSON OCR output from dots.ocr, containing detected text regions

The ocr column contains a JSON-serialized list of detected text blocks. Each block has the following structure:

Key	Type	Description
box	list[int]	Bounding box of the text region as [x1, y1, x2, y2]
text	string	Transcribed text content of the region
category	string	Layout category (e.g. "Title", "Text")
confidence	float	Model confidence score for the detection (0.0–1.0)

Example ocr entry:

[
  {"box": [366, 136, 1060, 502], "text": "FJÁRMÁLA FTIRLITIÐ", "category": "Title", "confidence": 1.0},
  {"box": [496, 721, 868, 760], "text": "Leiðbeinandi tilmæli", "category": "Text", "confidence": 1.0}
]

To parse the ocr column in Python:

import json
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("Sigurdur/timarit-ocr")
ocr_blocks = json.loads(ds["train"][0]["ocr"])
for block in ocr_blocks:
    print(block["category"], block["text"])

Data Splits

Split	Size
train	1000

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Source Data

About timarit.is

timarit.is is the digital newspaper and periodical archive maintained by the National and University Library of Iceland (Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn). It contains digitized issues of Icelandic newspapers and magazines spanning from the 19th century to the present, making it the primary resource for historical Icelandic printed text.

Collection Process

Pages were sourced from publicly available scans on timarit.is. Images were extracted at the page level and OCR transcriptions were generated using rednote-hilab/dots.ocr.

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Copyright & Licensing

This dataset is released under the Apache 2.0 License. Attribution is required — if you use this dataset, you must cite the author (see citation below).

Source Material Copyright

The source material in this dataset is drawn from timarit.is, the digital archive of the National and University Library of Iceland. Under Icelandic copyright law, a work enters the public domain 70 years after the death of the author. Not all documents in this dataset can be guaranteed to meet this threshold.

This dataset is intended solely for research purposes. Users must not use this dataset or its contents for commercial purposes. It is the responsibility of the user to verify the copyright status of any specific document before use beyond non-commercial academic research. The dataset author assumes no liability for copyright infringement arising from downstream use.

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Usage

import json
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("Sigurdur/timarit-ocr")
sample = ds["train"][0]

# View image metadata
print(sample["publication_id"], sample["issue_id"], sample["year"])

# Parse OCR blocks
ocr_blocks = json.loads(sample["ocr"])
for block in ocr_blocks:
    print(block["category"], block["text"])

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Intended Use

This dataset is intended for:

• Training and fine-tuning OCR models on historical Icelandic text
• Evaluating OCR performance on low-resource Nordic language documents
• Research into historical document understanding and layout analysis for Icelandic

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Limitations & Biases

• Coverage is limited to publications available on timarit.is and may not represent all historical Icelandic print media.
• Historical documents may contain archaic spelling, ligatures, and fonts that differ significantly from modern Icelandic text.
• Scan quality varies across publications and time periods, which may affect model performance.
• OCR transcriptions were generated automatically by dots.ocr and may contain errors, particularly on degraded or low-resolution scans.

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Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite:

@dataset{sigurdur2025timaritocr,
  author    = {Sigurdur Sigurdarson},
  title     = {Timarit OCR: Historical Icelandic Newspaper OCR Dataset},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url       = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/Sigurdur/timarit-ocr}
}

You may also want to cite the OCR model used to generate transcriptions:

@misc{rednote2025dotsocr,
  author    = {rednote-hilab},
  title     = {dots.ocr},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url       = {https://huggingface.co/rednote-hilab/dots.ocr}
}

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Related Datasets

• Sigurdur/isl-finepdfs-images — Icelandic PDF page images from the HuggingFaceFW/finepdfs collection