A cold basement room with cinderblock walls is not the coziest place to spend a winter morning in Indianapolis. But on Friday, February 21st, 2025, we were pleased to find the temperature sustained in the mid-sixties and dry—the perfect habitat for the new species that would soon inhabit the space. Monique Howell and I took a last look at the empty shelves in room B-17. The Supervisor of Indiana Collections, Monique Howell, has been advising me to ensure that this day went smoothly. The door to the new microfilm room shut behind us and we walked down the corridor toward the state archives filming lab to see our buddies Kim, Breanna, and Jenna.
In February, the Indiana Archives and Records Administration (hereafter referred to as IARA) handed over 3,800 reels of newspaper microfilm over to the Indiana State Library (ISL). Today, these reels would be merged with ISL’s existing master microfilm newspaper archive, comprising over 15,000 reels. Monique and I mapped out B-17, identifying sections to discover how much space would be left for the collection to grow. After that, we agreed to keep the Access database for ISL microfilm masters separate from the Excel database used to index the IARA collection. This division would also be reflected by a gap in the shelving arrangement.
After five minutes trekking down basement hallways in the government center, Monique and I walked into the film lab, a large square space with computer desks surrounded by filming equipment. The IARA team had three carts loaded already–expandable transports that each held a dozen totes of film. They were prepped to roll out in numerical order. The IARA team went beyond the call of duty to help bring the microfilm to B-17. They also helped to load the shelves and ensured that each numbered tote went in the proper sequence. There were even assessment notes about boxes containing acetate reels. Surprisingly, only two rows of shelving were filled by 73 IARA totes, leaving the ten remaining rows to be filled with existing ISL reels from another space.
Until recently, incoming orders for newspaper microfilm were fielded by our friends at the microfilm lab, who would contact me to provide the sources—print papers or master films– needed to fulfill them. Starting this year, I will be the patron’s first contact as Newspaper Librarian. After I have located the requested newspaper titles and dates (or after I’ve found them to be currently unavailable), I let the patron know and pass them along to the IARA lab, along with the requested newspapers that require reproduction. This makes more sense for the overall process, although the moving parts will be rusty at first. In deciding how to merge the original ISL and IARA newspaper microfilm master collections, there were several concerns. Below is a list of each concern and how it was addressed:
The space in the microfilm vault was too small to hold the merged collection.
The current ISL newspaper master vault is a smaller space. As ISL considered a new vault option, a basement room was considered and the shelves measured. It would allow space for both the original ISA and IARA collections to fit, with plenty of room for growth. The shelves were tall enough, but they were shallow from front to back, meaning the totes would need to be placed lengthwise. For this reason, only two totes now fit on each shelf (instead of three in the old room), but there are also six shelves per unit (instead of four in the old room). The staff of the IARA lab carefully marked the tote numbers on the long sides of the boxes so they could be referenced in the new layout. It is advisable for anyone merging their collections to ensure that the indexing systems are brought into the same framework. For instance, paper box listing in each tote as a check to ensure the contents, and reel boxes that include not only title code numbers but also the corresponding tote number so that extracted reels can go back into the correct totes. The ISL staff are grateful for the consistent help of our friends at the IARA lab throughout the process!
In the two collections, the numbering/labelling system of the IARA totes overlap with the numbering system for the ISL totes.
Renaming the IARA totes would have involved the manipulation of the indexing system because the largest tote numbers in the existing ISL collection have evolved to represent the newest editions of the most recent titles. It wouldn’t make sense to throw older dates/titles in with the more recently made totes. Also, it was a good idea to keep the IARA totes separated while ISL adjusted to whatever differences may manifest between the IARA reel collection and the ISL reels. For example, the IARA reels do not have the tote number written on each reel container, meaning that it would be difficult to put reels back in their proper tote after pulling them for an order. For these reasons, the IARA section of the totes went into one end of the new vault space. There will be a gap between them and the start of the original ISL collection. A map will be posted on by the vault entrance to indicate the origin of the sections, their placement, and the name of the corresponding Excel spreadsheet / Access database.
The two collections are indexed using two different software programs with overlapping newspaper titles.
The original ISL index has been kept in a Microsoft Access database, and the original IARA index has been kept in an Excel spreadsheet. In theory, they can be merged as Microsoft documents. Due to the differences between the two methods and the overlapping titles and tote numbers, it was decided that, for now, the IARA totes and the ISL totes will be managed with two different indexes. IARA has given large numbers of newspaper microfilms to ISL in the past. The tracking of titles between IARA and ISL has created double entries with confused placement and ownership in the Access database. This problem can be mitigated over time. Since ISL’s is the larger of the two collections, it may be worth scrubbing the data and reforming the Access database to encompass the entire newspaper microfilm master collection. The Excel listing could be merged into Access, a few titles at a time. In this way, ownership errors and double entries can be removed. Even if the indexes are integrated, however, there will still need to be an “A” and “B” section distinctions for each reel, because of the tote numbering system.
COMING UP THIS SUMMER: More Newspaper collections are moving away from print papers and migrating to digital objects, and only one company remains that currently makes blank reels for microfilming. Although some say that the movement from print news to digital news is also spelling the end of microfilm preservation, archivists know that filming is still the best method to ensure the safety of newspaper collections. We can’t emphasize this enough: Modern newspaper film will survive for over 200 years. Digital formats are fleeting. In the next installment, we will look at ISL’s big new initiative to collect digital newspapers from publishers in bulk, rather than taking print copies. The new IARA lab machines imprint digital images onto film, while the old camera and scan filming is being phased out! I have currently established commitments for over 90 titles to provide digital newspaper pages to ISL. But establishing publisher relationships is only the beginning of the new methodology. What is the process to track and name the files for proper filming? Next, we will look at publisher concerns and efforts, inroads and stumbling blocks on the road to updating the microfilming process!