The Ottumwa Public Library Friends, Inc. is happy to announce grant funding to further their microfilm digitization project. This is the third funding gift in this digitization project of the library’s local history collection.
“We are so grateful to the State Historical Society, Inc. for a $5,000 grant to aid in funding the continuation of this project,” said Sonja Ferrell, Director of the Ottumwa Public Library. “By digitizing this information we will be preserving our history for generations to come as well as making it accessible to patrons all over the world.”
This project specifically had Advantage Archives scan and digitize local newspaper collections that had been preserved via microfilm from 1952-1957.
Earlier this year, thanks to funding from the Wapello County Board of Supervisors digitization has been completed for as far back as 1867 up through 1952. By digitizing them the information is secured long past the shelf life of the microfilm and newspapers.
The other huge benefit to this project will be the accessibility of the information. Not only will one not need to be in the library to have access, but the information will be keyword searchable.
“Previously a person conducting research over microfilm would either need to already know dates of the information they were looking for or spend a long time scanning through reel after reel of microfilm” Ferrell said. “This will speed up the process for both patrons and staff conducting research on local Ottumwa history.”
The library and the Ottumwa Public Library Friends, Inc. are continuing to seek out funds in order to further the project of digitizing not only the microfilm in their collection, but also the scanning and digitization of the physical books and papers in their local history materials.
The website for the newspaper archives is https://ottumwa.advantage-preservation.com/ and is linked through the library’s website https://blog.ottumwapubliclibrary.org/
