Regional Digitization
Expand the diversity of southeastern Minnesota digital resources through collaborations with local libraries, community organizations, Minitex, the Minnesota Digital Library and the Minnesota Historical Society
Facilitate the creation of new local history displays, exhibits, or conversations. SELCO will work with libraries, historical societies, and other local organizations to document these potential new uses of the digitized newspapers. SELCO will work with libraries, historical societies, and other local organizations to seek additional Legacy funds to create educational programs or curriculum using the digitized newspapers.
Create a treasury of long-sought or unexpected information from digitizing newspapers from Southeastern Minnesota. To gauge the value of the digitized collection, SELCO will survey the members of the community with newspapers included in the digitized collection. In addition, anecdotes and stories will be collected from users of the digitized collection.
Following a final system upgrade and performance assessment, the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub went live in late September 2014. As a central repository and resource for digitized Minnesota newspapers, the Hub will make historic newspapers freely accessible over the Internet and provide greatly improved access through keyword searching of the page content. The SELCO newspapers are a key component and MNHS has uploaded all of the digitized SELCO newspapers to the Hub.
On April 8, 2014, staff from MHS held a workshop at SELCO to introduce the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub and provide training to SELCO and SELS member library staff for 17 registered attendees. The workshop included a review of the project to date, information on the newspapers contained in the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, and interactive exercises with the participants to get them acquainted with utilizing the search interface for the Hub. Eight participants responded to a online survey sent after the presentation to gauge their satisfaction with the workshop. Six respondents said they "strongly agreed" and two respondents said they "agreed" with the statement, "After attending the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub Training, my skills in using the Hub have improved." Additional comments showed appreciation for the workshop and the vast knowledge of the presenters.
An unexpected outcome came from the digitization process undertaken by MHS. Once the microfilm is digitized, MHS performs a quality review of the digitized content. During the quality review of batches containing the Mantorville Express (1857), Mantorville and Kasson Express, and The Mantorville Express (1886) a problem with the digitized images of the newspapers was discovered. Approximately 70 images had dark edges on the tops and/or bottoms of the pages. It turns out that the pages on the microfilm were affected by bad splices with adhesive that degraded the emulsion on the film. This resulted in those edges appearing dark. It was fortunate we are digitizing these titles, as the preservation of the film was in jeopardy. New master reels have been created from the original masters and also from the positive use copies to replace the affected reels. This will stabilize the master microfilm, and along with the digitized images, will preserve those titles for the future.
Minnesota Historical Society (MHS)