Content uploaded by Nicholas Gardner
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Nicholas Gardner on Apr 12, 2023
Content may be subject to copyright.
The West Virginia
Newspapers Portal
Free Access to History for All
West Virginia Library Association Annual Conference 2020
Thursday, October 15, 2020 10:00 am
Nicholas Gardner and Seth Caudill
Mary F. Shipper Library
General housekeeping
Please ask questions in the chat.
Please don’t unmute yourself to ask.
We will take questions between sections of the talk.
Thank you!
Who We Are
Nicholas Gardner
Staff Librarian
MLIS Clarion University
ngardner@mail.wvu.edu
Who We Are
Seth Caudill
Library Director
MSLS University of Kentucky
MA History WVU
seth.caudill@mail.wvu.edu
Talk Roadmap
1. Why Historic Newspapers?
2. Problems Preserving Historic Newspapers
3. Potomac State College: Our Experience
4. The Future for WV Newspapers
Why Historic Newspapers?
“What is the value of historic newspapers?”
“Why do we care about historic newspapers?”
“Who uses historic newspapers?”
“How do we locate historic newspapers?”
“What do we find in historic newspapers?”
•Primary resource material
•Clear picture of the past
•Family History & Genealogy
•Cross-disciplinary
Historic Newspapers:
Barriers
Newsprint wasn’t printed to last
Newsprint becomes brittle and
disintegrates over time -- shelf life
of around 50 years
Susceptible to heat/humidity/pests
Microfilm: Barriers
•Microfilm limitations
•Preservation of microfilm
•Structure disasters
•Theft
•Space
•Accessibility
Digital preservation: benefits
●Transfer to multiple formats
●Easier to duplicate
●Easier discovery/retrieval of information within
○Save time of reader (4th Law of Library Science)
●Removes barriers to physical access
○X is for use (1st Law of Library Science)
Digital preservation: Barriers
●Uncertainty around initiating a project
○How will I even get it done?
○How will I pay for it?
Digital preservation: Barriers
●Big risks and fears
○Will my collection not be as special?
○Will this result in a decline in foot traffic/library usage?
○What could happen to my microfilm reels?
Question Break
Potomac State: Our Experience
About us-
●Serve little more than 1,000 students
●Small staff
●Small budget
●Small building
Potomac State: Our Experience
How we got it done
●Saw staff time was limited, microfilm access tricky
●Started small, aiming for one newspaper
●Combined state and donor funds to get our
county (Mineral County) done first
Site link: https://libguides.potomacstatecollege.edu/wvnewspapers
Potomac State: Our Experience
How we got it done
●We saw with the success of digitizing Mineral
County newspapers that we should expand
●Began working with public libraries to add on
more content - now we include historic
newspapers from four counties
Potomac State: Our Experience
How we got it done
●We saw with the success of digitizing Mineral
County newspapers that we should expand
●Began working with public libraries to add on
more content - now we include historic
newspapers from four counties
https://libguides.potomacstatecollege.edu/wvnewspapers
Potomac State: Our Experience
How we got it done
●We saw with the success of digitizing Mineral
County newspapers that we should expand
●Began working with public libraries to add on
more content - now we include historic
newspapers from four counties
https://libguides.potomacstatecollege.edu/wvnewspapers
Potomac State: Our Experience
How we paid for it
●Mix of state and donor funding, primarily donor
funding
●Generous donations from many people, most
notably one alum who gave more than $20,000
Potomac State: Our Experience
Is our collection less special?
●Our collection is even more special than before!
○More counties/titles represented than our physical
microfilm collection
●More than 450,000 pages, more than 20 counties
(4 counties versus only Mineral County)
Potomac State: Our Experience
Is our collection less special?
●We traded off having a physical collection for a
unique digital collection that has expanded
beyond the coverage of our original physical
collection and created new partnerships.
Potomac State: Our Experience
How did this affect our microfilm’s usage?
●411,454 pageviews since Fall 2018
○263,335 pageviews since Jan 1, 2020
●Users have connected ~20,000 times
○50% since Jan 1, 2020
Potomac State: Our Experience
How did this affect our microfilm’s usage?
●Meaningful results
●Area expats using it from all around the county
(~30% of site users self-report as West Virginians
living elsewhere in the US: FL, GA, IA, IN, MD, MO,
NC, etc.)
Potomac State: Our Experience
●National Organization of Women - role of area in
19th amendment’s passage
●Local history authors using it as source for articles
and books
●Already useful for comparison of 1889 and 1918
pandemics
Potomac State: Our Users Speak
• Newspapers help me bring "life" to long-departed
ancestors.
• It was essential for an article I wrote.
• I can find my relatives.
• I was able to retrieve my father’s obituary.
Potomac State: Our Users Speak
• I’m a PSC alum and proud of my alma mater for
providing this service.
• I started looking at these newspapers and I
couldn’t stop.
• I would love it if more counties were added to the
collection.
Potomac State: Our Users Speak
• I’m able to use this to more quickly help patrons
find local history information - we don’t have
microfilm at our library.
• A lot of my patrons ask for information on local
history, we have microfilm, but I’m often busy as a
solo librarian, and this makes it faster for them to
find information and print it off.
Potomac State: Our Experience
… are our microfilm reels OK?
●We’ve worked with our vendor to scan over 300+
reels, belonging to us and to public libraries and
never lost a single reel
●Countless other libraries are working with them
The Future for WV Newspapers
We want you! (to join us!)
●One unified platform for a majority of digitized
WV Newspapers rather than disjointed collections
around the state on multiple sites
The Future for WV Newspapers
55 by 2025
●Presently, only half of West Virginia’s 55 counties
have digitized historic newspapers
●Significant bump from Life in the Time of
COVID-19 project funded by the WVU Humanities
Center
The Future for WV Newspapers
55 by 2025
●If you are interested in participating in this
project, please reach out to us. We welcome
partners throughout the state, public or college
libraries.
Thank you! Questions?
Nicholas Gardner
Staff Librarian
MLIS Clarion University
ngardner@mail.wvu.edu
A copy of this talk is available at
https://libguides.potomacstatecollege.edu/wvnewspapers
Seth Caudill
Library Director
MSLS University of Kentucky
MA History WVU
seth.caudill@mail.wvu.edu