The following excerpt is from the September 26, 2012 edition of the WesternFrontOnline.net:
Since Western was founded in 1899, there has been a student newspaper, said Tamara Belts, Special Collections Manager at Western. People often come to the Special Collections Office in the Western libraries to thumb through old copies of the paper, which date back over a century, Belts said.
A team of employees at Western library’s special collections has brought Western’s historic student newspapers to one archive completely viewable online, she said. The project began in 2008, and the data entering has been underway since 2010.
Belts is in charge of overviewing the newspaper scans and checking for errors. Sandy Celec, along with Lesley Lowery, uploads the older issues onto the program. Belts calls Celec the meta-beta specialist. Peter Smith is in charge of managing the online software for the database.
Once the group completes the online collection by spring 2013, anyone can visit the Western Front Historical Collection website and access any story covered by the paper since it was started in 1899, Belts said.
The process began when the team produced samples of the scanned newspapers from different eras of Western’s production, she said. Former Dean of Libraries Chris Cox met with former journalism student and Western alumna Cindy Hacherl, wrote for the Western Front in the 1980s, she said. Hacherl and her husband Don donated $15,000 to the project, which allowed the team to upload the first 50 years of Western Front back issues, Belts said.
…
On Oct. 9, Village Books in Fairhaven will host a lunch hour lecture from noon to 1 p.m., with a presentation about the new online content. Smith will explain how to search for back issues using the program. Retired Head of Collections Marian Alexander will present the making of the project, Smith said.
The online archives are located on the Western Library website under the digital collections tab. [Here is the direct link]
Thanks to ResearchBuzz for the heads-up.
