Joan Jarman of the Prince George Public Library holds up what will soon be a thing of the past -- the Prince George Citizen on microfilm. The library is digitizing the entire collection of the Prince George Citizen and making it available online. (Citizen photo by Brent Braaten)
When complete, the digitization project will provide an effective and efficient way for people to research history, revisit past stories and find information on an array of subjects such as industry, genealogy, and community. Articles and information, which to now, have been available mainly on microfilm, will be looked up via a key word search system, said Joan Jarman, marketing and development manager at the Prince George Public Library. For example, if you type in" floods", all information recorded on floods will become available.
Digitizing will begin shortly and is expected to take up to three years to complete.
"We'll start with the four oldest, short-duration papers dating back to 1910 -- Fort George Tribune, Fort George Herald, Prince George Post and Prince George Star, and continue from 1916 with the
Prince George Citizen to about 1950 during the first phase, expected to be completed in the fall of this year which will come on line at that time," said Jarman.
"This is an exciting project," said Jarman, noting the Prince George Public Library took the lead on this effort by submitting a grant application.
"We get so many requests for past information and this will make it readily accessible from a computer, no matter where people are in the world."
The Citizen, Prince George Community Foundation, CNC and UNBC joined with the public library to provide matching funds for the grant of $15,000 from the B.C. History Digitization Program, a division of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at UBC, for the newspaper project.
"We are proud to be a contributor," said Citizen publisher Del Laverdure.
"The Citizen is really the only historic record in Prince George. This will be well used by The Citizen staff and will make our lives a lot easier," said Laverdure, noting many staff members are eagerly anticipating the project to come online.
There is no danger of losing the information in the wake of a serious computer crash because the materials will be archived at Northern B.C. Archives, Jarman said.
A second Prince George archival project, funded by the BCHDP, involves the digitization of more than 2,000 slides from Northwood Pulp and Timber Ltd., highlighting 35 years of Northwood's natural resource activity in B.C's Central Interior. The grant from the B.C. History Digitization program Funds for this project are being matched by the Northern B.C. Archives and the UNBC Geoffrey Weller Library.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
