Libraries, Museums & Historical Societies
The Advantage Archives team has been partnering with community libraries, library systems, historical societies, and other cultural institutions to preserve and provide practical digital access to their community’s printed history.
A partnership with Advantage unlocks content that was previously available only in a limited format and only within the walls of the institution. Our Community History Archives offer free access to the rich history of your community that was printed in the newspapers and other records, books, or documents of the day. These pages, when stitched together, tell the story of the people, places, and events that shaped your community.
Serving as a “portal to the past,” your institution’s Community History Archive will provide your patrons primary source documents that give an accounting of history as told by the individuals that witnessed it. Together we put history at the fingertips of anyone interested and connect the members of your community to their past in a very tangible and meaningful way.
Through a collaborative approach, we will partner with your institution, your local publisher, and other like-minded individuals in your community, to ensure that the “first rough draft of history” is both archived AND accessible, with our microfilm and digital offerings.
Our team will provide you with access to tracking tools so you can track the usage of your database for your end-of-the-year reporting. Our team will continue to improve and update your database as technology changes.
Our approach results in a keyword-searchable Community History Archive, providing a high return rate on keywords, a browse-able index, online (or in-house) availability, and the tools to explore, discover and share content in ways not possible when it only existed as microfilm. We offer this at per image cost that allows the creation of an archive within almost any budget.
Many of our partnering institutions share in our belief that digitization is only part of the answer, and to truly ensure the future of your community’s history requires converting local historical newspapers, pictures, books, maps, and other documents onto 35mm Silver Halide Microfilm, It is critical to protect the valuable printed material from the ravages of time.