Preserving the Gossip of the Past: Elgin County Archives’ Newspaper Digitization Project by Natysha Rieger: Digitization Assistant, Elgin County Archives Before Facebook, Twitter (X), and other social media and digital news outlets, we had our noses buried in newspapers. These historical gems held the latest gossip, local, national, international news, and much more. Now, these seemingly mundane daily papers hold a wealth of information for historians and researchers alike to better understand the events, beliefs and morals of the past. Starting in 2019, The Elgin County Archives’ Newspaper Digitization Project has made considerable progress digitizing the local daily and weekly newspapers from across the county. In partnership with the Elgin County branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), significant funding from the Estate of Donna Vera Evans Bushell, and the Blinder Family Foundation, Digitization Assistants have been able to scan more than 600 years, spanning 36 newspaper titles from; the Aylmer Express , to the Rodney Mercury as well as smaller community newspapers like Our Community Press. The current Digitization Assistant is focused on digitizing the original issues of The St. Thomas Times-Journal. This process consists of four simple steps: preparation, scanning, storing, and record creation. Since 2021, over 236,039 pages of the Times- Journal have been scanned by hand and added to our database. Preparing these original newspapers for scanning is a very tedious and time-consuming job. Each book needs to be carefully removed from its bindings by cutting away the old
glue and threads that attached the pages to the spine, making sure to avoid rips and tears. Some of the newspapers that are kept in large flat archival boxes need to be checked for any misplaced dates and if necessary, reorganized. Once done, every page is scanned until the book is completely done. Depending on the condition of the newspaper, some pages may be in pieces and need to be reassembled as neatly as possible. At the end of the scanning process, a large multi- page PDF is created that is saved into our system and paired with a database record. After the scanning process is finished, the newspaper books are wrapped up in archival-quality paper to ensure that the loose pages will stay together. Labels are created and attached to the wrapping where they are visible and easy to read. After the books are stored away, database records are made for the newly created PDF. These records can be found through the Newspaper Finding Aid on our website. If you have any questions about the digitization project or need assistance navigating the Newspaper Finding Aid, please contact Elgin County Assistant Archivist, Gina Dewaele at: gdewaele@elgin.ca or call 519-631-1460 ext. 154.
Image of Scanner Rig Set Up. Caption: This is the Digitization Assistant’s workstation. They are hard at work scanning every page by hand!
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Hometown St. Thomas • September 2024 • Page 9
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