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

We are excited that this project will unlock a significant source of local history for casual and serious researchers and genealogists, and perhaps even students in local schools

Free to users, the Advantage Community History Archive is incredibly user-friendly with a wonderful search engine and clipping tool that saves the newspaper source and info. It has easier and better searching than even some of the huge paid online sites. I love how it can highlight articles you have already viewed, which is enormously helpful when returning to a search of hundreds of articles on the same computer later so you don’t lose your place

We love having our digital archives available and free to anyone through Advantage Archives. We have received great feedback from our patrons and even from across the country of how grateful everyone is for this resource for genealogy and history research. Staff has also found it a great time saver when more in-depth research is needed, by allowing us to search more uncommon requests easily and quickly

Sometimes, a person will come to us and say, ‘I know my aunt died in 1936 but I don’t know the right date.’ So you’re searching for the reel, looking for the right one… you can never be 100 percent sure you missed it. We could be more accurate and more timely and give people exactly what they want, rather than close to it

Many states participating in the National Digital Newspaper Project, or Chronicling America, have had additional newspapers beyond this project digitized. One vendor that caught our interest while researching our own such project is Advantage Archives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They contracted with the Divide County Public Library to digitize the area newspapers from microfilm created by the North Dakota State Archives. Being a Divide County native, it certainly captured my interest as I was able to search for relatives — and even myself!

Our Community History Archive is a valuable tool for preserving and celebrating the past and guiding the future. Having access to information about the heritage of our town is important for determining our place in that continuing narrative, helping create meaning and a dynamic sense of community identity

Our Community History Archive is a valuable asset for anyone,  because it is readily available to anyone with or without a library card. We are very pleased with the services offered by Advantage Archives. It has helped us to offer a valuable resource and service to our community

Our partnership with Advantage Archives  has benefited us in two very important ways: 1) our print copies are no longer subject to so much physical handling, and 2) our collections are now visible and usable online so that visitors no longer have to travel long distances to view the materials on site

Our Community History Archive aligns directly with the portion of our mission that states that the public library will “maintain and improve the quality of life for all citizens of our community by providing resources and programs that enhance and contribute to individual knowledge, enlightenment, and enjoyment in the most efficient manner possible.”  What could be a more efficient method to access information than a digitized collection?