In August of 2024, a concerned researcher from North Carolina contacted me about a missing person’s case, a lost story. Dr. Almira Fifield lost her life in 1863 while treating Union Soldiers in Paducah, Kentucky. (The patron’s middle name was also Fifield, a clue about her motivations.) This case was personal–but it was also important to the bulwark of women’s… Read more »

With the mudslinging of another presidential election upon us, it is more important than ever to promote reliable news sources. Foreign interference in our social media feed has already been identified as we approach voting day in November. In the last post, we discussed the efforts of Dan Hurd to save bankrupt Indiana newspapers. The health of modern newspapers in… Read more »

Currently, ISL holds microfilm for over 100 Indiana newspapers. Two thirds are dailies, and most of the remaining titles are weeklies. But that number fluctuates amid the growing epidemic of newspaper closures. On one hand, only a small percentage of the nation’s documents can be saved. On the other, the newspaper is an exemplary specimen when examined against the checklist… Read more »

In the world of newspaper preservation formats, microfilm is still preferred. Digital formats have shown themselves to be highly versatile for the researcher, making microfilm seem out-of-date and ineffective by comparison. The lifespan of digital formats such as TIFFs and PDFs is unknown because these objects are linked to a quickly changing market that renders older versions obsolete. Film preservation,… Read more »

Whether they exist in a society headquarters, a university, or a local library, archived newspapers require format diversity to be preserved effectively. At the Indiana State Library (ISL), newspaper titles can be stored as digital copies, print copies, and microfilm copies. Ensuring that each title is saved in two of these formats gives it “legs to stand on.” Each preservation… Read more »