The Ancestor Hunt has been tracking Advantage Archives Community History Archive installations at libraries and other institutions since 2017. We have been publishing links to these Archives for our readers since there were just a couple hundred institutions 7 years ago. Our interest has always been in newspapers, a favorite topic at The Ancestor Hunt.
Advantage has always been very cooperative with us and we know it is dedicated to assisting local libraries especially, to digitize newspapers and other historical documents. Our mutual goals are the same – to assist library patrons, researchers, and local communities.
We celebrate with Advantage a major milestone – over 120 million pages of historical documents digitized and searchable and available to researchers for free everywhere. We honor the 1,000 libraries and other institutions that take on the challenge of funding these projects in service to their patrons and communities.
We love the website, it’s so much easier to search than our previous system (or than microfilm), and personally I can’t stop looking things up just for fun! We did post on our social media and got some comments from patrons too…
-“What a great resource! Congratulations!”
-“This is EXCITINGGGGGGG!!!”
-“This is awesome thank you so much!!!!! As a teacher this will be an amazing resource in my classes!”
-“This is so much faster! Plus the interface is so much better.”
-“I just tested it out. I am floored. I just found the death notice for my great great grandmother, Frances Nickens. [1852-1922] I have been looking literally for decades… thank you for adding this to your amazing collection of resources.”
“I just wanted to thank your system for the wonderful resources that are free to use. Today, I found new addresses for my grandparents and great-grandparents, my grandparents wedding announcement and who attended the small party that was held later for them. I also learned that my great-grandmother, having just gained the right to vote, attended classes to learn how to exercise that right. Then I found that–new to me–that the G-Grands had moved to Pittsburgh, but returned to visit Canton families over the years. They continued to visit after they moved to Washington, DC.
Thank you again and please share my thoughts with those that want to know if money for digitizing has been well-spent. I’m sure that I am just one of thousands that would answer, YES!”
Our archives are an important part of community history. They help us understand events in our community’s history, and help us understand the contributions of generations past from a truly unique vantage point: as they were happening. Making these archives accessible to the public is a great service to the community
Local history is important to our community, and having resources available online, has opened access to documents that are fragile, and in need of preservation. Having a digitized archive has made finding relevant material much more efficient, and enabled us to integrate multiple resources within one search. Our community history archive has allowed us to serve a global audience, rather than just those individuals who walk through our doors. Digitized resources are invaluable, and we plan to continue to add resources to our Community History Archive each year
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
The history of Dryden is so fascinating, There’s so many little stories, so many people – the amazing people that came through here and settled this area and created the village, the industry and the library itself. It’s just fascinating. And knowing those stories aren’t just buried in the newspaper or lost, or stuck on microfilm, and now are accessible, is just huge. When we know where we’ve been, where we came from, I think we can create a better future for Dryden. It’s such a wonderful village. The people are involved and care about it. So anything we can do to solidify the foundation is priceless
Right now, if you want to read those old newspapers, you have to go to the libraries or the museums to read the microfilms, which is not very accessible. With the digitization project, any student who is doing a history project, or anyone who is interested, can type in the keywords, a certain date and see the newspapers from their home, library, school or wherever they are. It will be accessible to everyone.
A newspaper is a journal of the life of a people, in the case of the Messenger, the life of the people of the Diocese of Davenport. So it is important that the Messenger be preserved. This new digital archive will make it easily accessible and preserve it for generations to come
We get a lot of requests from people to find information in the old local newspapers we have on microfilm, the issue we have is, if the person doesn’t have a good idea of the date or a fairly limited date range for us to search, with our staff, it’s just not practical for us. It’s amazing how much more valuable this tool is for making that history and information so accessible to everybody
The digital archives of the Ida Grove Library is a fantastic resource for library staff, patrons and visitors. Having a searchable online database of newspapers allows us to quickly find information that would have normally taken hours of searching microfilm rolls, we can now do this in a matter of minutes
While it was great that patrons could come in and search the microfilm in house, it wasn’t searchable in a real efficient way, we now have an online searchable index of every paper since 1895
We have been working towards this historic archive since the technology was introduced many years ago. It has been a long-time vision to provide online access to our microfilmed newspaper collection. This project aligns with the Board of Trustee’s Strategic Plan which focuses on five areas, one of which is Discover Your Roots: Genealogy and Local History
We receive many requests that come to the library from people who are searching for information, and without exact newspaper dates, it can be difficult to find what they are looking for. By digitizing the collection — It will have a keyword search, so people should have a much easier time finding all kinds of old stories, obituaries, ads and whatever else they might be searching for that ran on the pages of the newspaper through the years
In the past we would have been totally reliant on an outside vendor to provide access to this important historical archive. This allows us to make these items available through our website to anyone who needs them at no additional future cost
We are so excited to make our history available to residents both young and old, and to tell our story to the rest of the state, country, and world. What started out as a small project has gotten bigger with additional communities in our area all eager to participate. With the help of two large grants, the cost to our communities will be minimal and the benefits will be great
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
Advantage’s approach is scalable as a comprehensive project not only for Iowa, but for any community across the country. We’re appreciative of Advantage’s approach and understanding for the value of the archive and their willingness to work as true partners
