To any organization considering using Advantage Archives to preserve your community history, DON’T WAIT!  This information is TOO important to delay this project.  Find a way to do it a little at a time if need be, but DO IT!  You’ll be answering questions that others have been searching for.

I HIGHLY recommend Advantage Archives[…]  They deliver what they promise on time and on budget. 

We are so pleased with our digitized newspapers from Advantage Archives. The Advantage staff were great to work with, always courteous, very knowledgeable, and above-and-beyond helpful!

We are so pleased with our digitized newspapers from Advantage Archives. The Advantage staff were great to work with, always courteous, very knowledgeable, and above-and-beyond helpful!”

Our digital collection of historic Moline newspapers connects our community to events that impact and transform their lives.  It makes history come to life. People can fill in missing pieces from their memories.

Our Community History Archive is a resource that allows the library to work towards it’s mission of providing materials, programming, and other services. It’s just one of the services offered to the community, whether it’s within the walls of the library or accessed remotely.

Our Community History Archive is a valuable research tool for our Moline community because it saves the time of the researcher and makes “lost things found.” One example, in working on a collaborative project with a local museum for the upcoming 100th Anniversary of Suffrage in the United States, I found sample ballots for a local election—the men’s ballot and the women’s ballot from 1919.  Illinois allowed women to vote in 1891 for school officials and by 1913, Governor Edward Dunne signed the Illinois suffrage bill.

It’s been rewarding to observe patrons’ faces, as they express their delight in finding a missing piece of whatever puzzle they were researching. We hear many “guess what I found?” stories.  People often find family tree information, connections for reunions, or reminiscing about their high school sports records.

We have newspapers on microfilm dating back from 1869. There is quite a lot of information in this collection from the local newspapers, but putting them in digital form is exciting for us and is something not very many libraries are capable of right now. The very idea that the entire collection would be made available for free access to anyone anywhere is amazing.