The fragile newsprint and bulky microfilm on which Putnam County's history is printed will soon be readable without the legwork of old-fashioned library research.
The Library Services and Technology Act awarded $20,000 to DePauw University libraries, the Putnam County Public Library and the Banner Graphic which will provide funds to create a digital database filled with issues of the Banner Graphic and other Greencastle newspapers dating back to 1837.
Three-hundred-sixteen reels — approximately 201,000 frames — of microfilm from several Greencastle newspapers will be scanned and eventually accessed as Portable Document Format files. These PDF files will then become part of the DePauw University digital library.
"We do get a lot of people doing research on historical issues of the Banner Graphic," said Rick Provine, director of libraries at DePauw. "This will allow people to do that research and will make it easier to keyword search that date. It will improve the research process in general."
Eric Bernsee, editor-in-chief of the Banner Graphic, said this is not the first time these records will be available, but this grant will make them much more accessible to citizens and students interested in researching historical events.
"Previously you could look up things on microfilm, and we had some bound volumes here that people would come ask to look through," Bernsee said. "But it is really time consuming to try and find something that occurred, say, 20 years ago."
Librarians from both DePauw libraries and the Putnam County Public are working to make digital newspapers searchable and accessible from computers worldwide. Additionally, the Putnam County Public Library is supporting the project with some funding and newspaper microfilm.
"I think it will be a great resource for anyone interested in Putnam County history," said Alice Greenburg, director of the Putnam County Public Library. "That's going to be a huge advantage to people who are researching pretty much any topic related to Putnam County. Both students and residents, along with people outside the county and all over the country [will benefit]."
According to Provine, because library staff has been steadily working on a digital library for the past two years, the transformation will not be too much of a hassle. The grant allows one year for completion of the project, which will take place this May and finish the following spring.
Brooke Cox, visual resources librarian and coordinator of the digital library programming and Wes Wilson, the coordinator of Archives and Special Collections at DePauw, have been working to digitize as much of the Banner Graphics archives as possible.
"It will be really important," Cox said. "There has not been a lot of local town history done over the years so this will be a primary resource that students and the community can use."
Bernsee expects some interest in researching information that was previously unavailable.
"There is a lot of history here that people didn't experience firsthand but have heard about for years and would like to read and see about," Bernsee said. "Being able to go online and actually look will be pretty neat to do."