A cold basement 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 in B-17 sustained in the mid-sixties and dry. A perfect habitat for the species that would soon inhabit the space. I took a last look at the empty shelves and the extra space they provided. Supervisor of Indiana Collections Monique Howell has been advising me on the move and now we were ready. The door to B-17 shut behind us and we walked down the corridor toward the state archives filming lab to see our friends and associates Kim, Breanna, and Jenna.
In February, the Indiana Archives and Records Administration (hereafter called IARA) handed 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 archive, adding-up to over 18,000 reels. Monique and I already 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 index for ISL microfilm masters separate from the Excel database used to index the IARA collection. This separation required a gap in the shelving arrangement.
After five minutes trekking down basement hallways in the government center, Monique and I walked into a large square space with computer desks surrounded by filming equipment. The IARA team had three carts loaded–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, helping us shelf the new containers and ensuring that each was added in the proper sequence. They had flagged boxes containing acetate reels–these would be slated for duplication onto polyester film. 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, orders for newspaper microfilm were fielded by our friends at the microfilm lab, who would contact me to provide the print or mastering sources needed to fulfill them. Starting this year, I will be the patron’s first contact as Newspaper Librarian. After locating the requested newspaper titles and dates, I send them to the lab with the patron’s information. This makes more sense in 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, common roadblocks were addressed. Here are the major concerns—and how they were 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 searched for a more spacious vault option, a basement room was considered and the shelves measured. It had the capacity for both the original ISA and IARA collections, 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 vertical shelves per unit (instead of four in the old room). The staff of the IARA lab had carefully marked tote numbers on the long sides of the containers so they could be referenced “at a glance” 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, each tote contained a list to ensure the contents matched the digital spreadsheet. I’m 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 consecutive tote numbers in collection have evolved to represent the newest editions of the most recent titles. It wouldn’t make sense to throw totes holding older dates/titles in with the more recently filmed reels. 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 masters do not have the tote number written on each reel box, meaning that it would be difficult to put them 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 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 overlapping numbers of the tote labeling system.
COMING UP THIS SUMMER: We can’t emphasize this enough: Modern microfilm will survive for over 200 years. Digital formats are fleeting. In the next installment, we will look at ISL’s 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!