Don Hurd: Proactive preservation

Currently, the Indiana State Library holds microfilm for over 100 Indiana newspapers. Two-thirds are dailies, and most of the remaining titles are weeklies. But, that number fluctuates amid the growing epidemic of newspaper closures. On one hand, only a small percentage of the nation’s documents can be saved. On the other hand, the newspaper is an exemplary specimen when examined against the checklist for archival preservation. A local newspaper is an official document that can be used in a court of law. It reflects the surrounding community, outlines changes in infrastructure, provides glimpses into the lives of citizens, and offers a record of marriages, crimes (sometimes even exposing them for the first time), graduations, deaths and new business ventures. Your town paper is an important piece of the national puzzle of U.S. history. Such documents inspired the first Constitutional Amendment, supporting journalism as well as assembly. Although free speech doesn’t allow me to cry “fire” in a crowded room, I must inform you that the future of our national history is indeed on fire.

The digital revolution has not diminished the need for newspapers in our communities. There is no other news source that is reliable enough to replace newspapers. In fact, the bulk of material being scrolled on smartphones has been altered by activists. Even so, most of us aren’t buying our local papers anymore, resulting in fewer ad dollars for publishers who must shut down their presses. 3,000 U.S. newspaper publishers have announced they were closing in the last 20 years. A large percentage of this number did so after the pandemic shifted our comfort zone into the current digital-consumption lifestyle that now leaves readers frustrated and confused.

Enter Mr. Don Hurd, an investor who has worked in newspaper management for over 40 years. With degrees in marketing as well as journalism, he has been able to invent new methods for financing local papers. Hurd was on the board of the Hoosier State Press Association for 18 years, and now provides us all with a working model for reviving a town newspaper. Having worked in the business of newspapers all his life, he understands the importance of a “hyper-local” record. In a statement that could bring a tear to the eye of an archivist, he mused that “I call it refrigerator journalism because my parents would always cut out articles about their children and post them proudly on their refrigerator for all to see.” As of 2022, he had revived over 20 Indiana titles, and he is still going. In April of 2021, he told the Seattle Times, “Whenever I hear of a community that’s supposedly losing their newspaper it really pains me when that happens so I do whatever I can,” he said. “I try to look for opportunities that are out there and make sure the community has got a local newspaper they can be proud of, and serve their needs.”

The Seattle Times reporter, Brier Dudley, obviously had a stake in this effort. He observed, “I’ve written about ways to help news outlets survive as the market evolves and they pursue new business models. But, ultimately what’s needed to sustain America’s free-press system is a multitude of local owners willing and able to support journalism in every city and county. That’s happening in large cities, where wealthy, civic-minded investors are trying to preserve flagship newspapers.”

In the increasing uproar about war overseas and the impending election, this subject is rarely discussed on news programs. But the federal government has been monitoring the problem. Congressional think tanks have been brainstorming newspaper revival techniques and sponsoring grants. Towns and counties are investing in their newspapers so that tax payers have an investment in their own journalism. Then, there are private citizens who have the means – either financially or by showing a working knowledge of the business – who can do the heavy lifting. There are many ways to revive our dying newspapers, but Hurd is in the vanguard of real-time research to increase financial stability. The journalists can do the rest. We must actively support and revive our local papers, or we will find that there is nothing left to preserve. We must allow newspapers to continue telling the “story of us.”

Some local newspapers have become mere reprints of pre-existing regional and national news. Following the rules of archival evaluation, one could argue that such newspapers no longer fit the paradigm to meet preservation standards. Others could argue that it is not the archivist’s place to question newspapers, but to preserve all of them without question. Do you believe that current newspaper assessment procedures will lead to “skipping” certain titles? Has this subject been addressed at your library?

This post was submitted by David Pleiss, newspaper librarian with the Indiana Division of the Indiana State Library. 

Building a collection through donations

The Indiana State Library Foundation provides the Indiana Collection with a small book budget annually. These funds purchase newly-published books, dissertations, plat books and select serial titles about Indiana. However, much of what the State Library hopes to collect can’t be bought. We are always evaluating and accepting donations. Items we’re most interested in collecting are trade catalogs from Indiana manufactures, annual reports from local and statewide organizations, commemorative history publications and event programs. We have the space, knowledge and resources to accept donations of rare and at-risk print items representing Indiana. Our mission is to ensure long-term access to these materials for future generations of Hoosiers.

A recent notable donation was received from the Orange County Historical Society. They had large collection of print newspapers from a local newspaper office. The Indiana State Library accepted 30 years of the Paoli Republican and 10 years of the Paoli News – which fills a gap in our archive holdings. Print newspapers are notoriously fragile and difficult to store because of their size.

Time takes a toll on newsprint quicker than other types of paper so newsprint should be transferred to another format for long term preservation. The Indiana State Library works with the Indiana Archives and Records Administration’s State Imaging Lab to put newspaper to microfilm, which is the preferred archival format. The State Library and IARA will work to put these papers on microfilm and the library will house the older issues with our print newspaper archive. These are services many local historical societies and libraries do not have to resources to complete. Working together to preserve history is an amazing feeling. Thank you to the Orange County Historical Society for their donation!

If you have printed matter relating to the history of Indiana you think would be best housed at the Indiana State Library, please reach out to Monique Howell.

To make a monetary contribution to the Indiana State Library Foundation – which supports our work to preserve the materials – please visit the foundation’s webpage.

This post was written by Monique Howell, Indiana Collection supervisor.

Newspapers, a great source for family history… and other tidbits

Newspapers are a great source for genealogy and history information. They can provide new details about your family through obituaries, human interest stories and the society pages. Newspapers can also provide background stories and unexpected context that flesh out your ancestors’ lives and experiences. So, here are some examples of the family history information to be gleaned from newspapers.

Indianapolis Times, March 21, 1936, page 12

Vital records articles cover birth, marriage and death information. These can include vital statistics columns from local hospitals, marriage announcements in the society pages and obituaries. Those columns give you biographical details on specific ancestors and can help you outline familial structures. Obituaries are a particularly good source for details, as they often name parents, siblings and children. They are especially useful prior to the use of birth and death certificates.

Jasper Weekly Courier, June 1, 1894, page 4

Legal notice articles also provide insight into your ancestors’ lives. Court notices may list all the cases being heard in local courts or they may list cases where public notice is required, such as name changes. These columns also include listings of land transfers, so if you are researching property or trying to figure out exactly where your ancestors lived, these articles can help.

Richmond Palladium, June 29, 1921, page 4

Society pages document the doings of the members of a community. In big cities, these columns often focus on the lives of the rich and famous, but in smaller communities everyone is covered. Do you want to know what they ate at the annual community picnic?  Interested in what your great-grandmother got at her wedding shower? These articles are for you! Beyond knowing the minute details of your ancestors’ lives, those who attended momentous life events were often close friends and family, giving you an idea of who your ancestors knew and with whom they associated.

Indianapolis Times, February 23, 1934, page 30

Even advertisements tell us about our ancestors’ lives. Grocery ads, clothing ads, car ads, etc., show us the products people of the past bought and used. Some products are still on the market today, but many are things that are no longer available. Relatedly, columns covering fashion, cooking and housekeeping also show how people lived.

Daily Wabash Express, November 24, 1889, page 6

Local news columns show details about the past, from weather forecasts to crime reporting to local election results. These articles show the day to day events our ancestors experienced as well as local responses to and state and national events. They provide a contemporaneous perspective on past events.

Looking for newspapers? All the images used in this article were taken from Hoosier State Chronicles, the Indiana State Library’s free digital newspaper database. We also offer access to several subscription newspaper databases in the library, as well as the world’s largest collection of Indiana newspapers, accessible on microfilm.

This blog post is by Jamie Dunn, Genealogy Division supervisor.

Do a browse! It’s fun and everyone is doing it!

Here at the Indiana State Library – and at many public libraries across the state – we make commercial newspaper databases available for research. The great thing about these databases is that they are keyword searchable. Need to find Uncle Ned’s obit? Done. Need to find articles about the 1960 election? Done. Want to pull up everything the Indy Star has ran on elephants? Done. Research has been revolutionized. I support it 100%.

However, one thing these databases take away is the joy of browsing. Will students know the stumbling dumb fun of coming across something they weren’t even looking for?

If you enjoy the hunt, we have two resources here that keep the browse tradition alive: the clippings files and the Indianapolis Newspaper Index.

The Indianapolis Newspaper Index offers some great moments of discovery. For example, do you know about George and Perry? 

Now you want to know more!

What about Mount Lawn, where folks are living in pioneer log cabins!? Mount Lawn has a sad little Wikipedia page, and not much to be found with a Google search, but here in the card file it called out to me, a lover of log homes, and I wanted to know more.

Indianapolis Star Magazine December 6, 1953, page 21

You can also come into the library to browse our clippings files on the second floor. These are literally articles “clipped” from newspapers. They aren’t just tossed in a drawer; we have subject headings – which are fun to browse and useful, too. The subject headings under “charities” points us to some other ideas:

Charities
– 1939, 1940-49, 1950-59, 1960-69, 1970-79, 1980-89, 1990-99, 2000-
– Community Centers (contains material on American Settlement, Kirshbaum Center, Boys Club, Northeast Community Center, Lawter Boys Club, Hawthorne Community Center)
See also
Indianapolis, Flower Mission
– Community Centers – Christamore
– Community Centers – Flanner House
– Community Centers – Fletcher Place
– Goodwill Industries
– Indianapolis Day Nursery
– Salvation Army
– Suemma Coleman Home
– Wheeler Mission

Did you know you can also browse our online catalog? While you can’t enter our stacks, you can browse the Evergreen Catalog by call number. Say you find a book that looks relevant to your research topic and want to “look” at the shelf around it. Select Advanced Search, then select the Numeric Search tab, then utilize the “Call number (shelf browse)” option and plug in the call number of the book you found.

Happy hunting!

This post was written by Indiana Collection Supervisor Monique Howell

Ethnic South Bend newspapers

Diverse ethnicities were represented in St. Joseph County, Indiana near the turn of the 20th century. According to “Indiana Newspaper Bibliography,” by John W. Miller, there were several Hungarian newspapers, among other ethnic-language papers, published in South Bend in the first quarter to half of the century. I wondered why and how there came to be a prominent Hungarian community in South Bend.

According to “Peopling Indiana: the Ethnic Experience,” edited by Robert M. Taylor, Jr. and Taylor McBirney (ISLI 305.8 P419i), the Studebaker Wagon Company and the Oliver Plow Plant in South Bend needed laborers. In 1882, they welcomed 32 citizens from a Hungarian Village, Hegykő, to South Bend to work in the factories. Churches and other community groups helped to host the newest South Bend citizens. Another wave of Hungarian migration came in the early 1900s, and toward the end of World War I, a group of professional and highly-trained Hungarian workers immigrated to South Bend and the Calumet Region. Apparently, the professional group did not mix well with the group of laborers. The laborers for the most part lived in boarding houses, where the close quarters caused disagreements and drama. There was even a radio show broadcast from South Bend called the “Sunday Hungarian Family Hour,” which fictionalized life in the boardinghouses for entertainment. Although the Hungarian-Americans tried to spotlight their ethnic identity with festivals and costume displays, they remained a largely close-knit group. In fact, their neighborhood area was nicknamed “Little Budapest” where there were Catholic churches that conducted masses in Hungarian, among other social organizations.

According to the Miller book, no library or institution in Indiana has holdings of Igazság, translated as Truth in English, a politically-independent Hungarian newspaper which ran from about 1906-10. Another Hungarian newspaper was called simply, The News, which ran for a short, unknown time period. Es Videke, or I’m in the Middle, was published from 1925-26, although the State Library does not have holdings. Yet another, Magyar Tudosito, or Hungarian Bulletin, was published from 1911-19, and concentrated on helping to Americanize the Hungarian immigrants. Miller’s book does not indicate any Indiana holdings for Magyar Tudosito.

Városi Élet, translated to City Life, is the Hungarian newspaper for which we have the longest run on microfilm, from January 1934 to January 1953. From the description in our Evergreen catalog, in which it was listed as a Hungarian/English newspaper, I had hoped that the Városi Élet might have side-by-side Hungarian and English articles. I assumed that the purpose of having such a newspaper would be to assist adjustments in relocating to the United States. Instead, I found that the few English words that did appear in the Városi Élet newspaper were in advertisements and comic strips.

Here is a page from Városi Élet from 1934:

Here is a page from the same newspaper in 1953. There were very few format changes over the years:

This newspaper ceased publication before the next major migration of Hungarians to St. Joseph County, which was after the Hungarian uprising in 1956. At that time, around 300 Hungarians immigrated to the area.

South Bend, and St. Joseph County in general, still has a substantial number of its population with Hungarian heritage, as well as those with Polish, German, English and Irish heritage. This county in Indiana is rich with ethnic history and traditions. For more information on the Hungarian migration to Indiana, see “Hungarian-Americans in St. Joseph County, Indiana: Implications of Ethnicity for Social Policy” by Wim Wiewel (ISLM F 532 .S2 W548 1979).

The Indiana State Library is always looking for newspapers that we are missing in our collection. If you find any of the above newspapers listed in the Miller book in Hungarian, we would love to receive your donations, either temporary – while microfilming – or permanent, to add to our collection.

This blog post was written by Leigh Anne Johnson, Indiana Division newspaper librarian, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana Division at 317-232-3670 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Indianapolis Times photograph collection now available for public viewing

In October of 2017, the Indiana State Library Rare Books and Manuscripts Division acquired the photograph morgue of The Indianapolis Times, comprising of over 150,000 photographs dating from 1939-65. Also included were thousands of clippings and brochures, relating to international, national, state and local topics.

 

The Indianapolis Times exposed the Ku Klux Klan and its influence on Indiana state politics during the 1920s, resulting in journalism’s highest award, the Pulitzer Prize. It advocated for children’s needs during the Great Depression and helped over 4,000 Indiana residents find jobs by publishing free advertisements during the 1960s. The newspaper ran its final issue on Oct. 11, 1965. Daily circulation totaled 89,374 with a Sunday circulation of 101,000. For more information about the newspaper’s history, the Indiana Historical Bureau created a post within the Hoosier State Chronicles blog.

 

Researchers can request to view the collection by calling Rare Books and Manuscripts at (317) 232-3671 or submitting a question via Ask-A-Librarian. The newspaper is available on microfilm in the Indiana Collection.

This blog post was written by Bethany Fiechter, Rare Books and Manuscripts supervisor, Indiana State Library.

Indexes moving into Legacy

The librarians in the Indiana Division are working hard to move two of our most used guides into the Indiana State Library’s Legacy database. Legacy is a searchable database for many of our library’s indexes. The Newspaper Holdings guide and the Biography Index are moving.

Newspaper Holdings on Microfilm: The state library has the largest collection of Indiana Newspapers on microfilm. While digitization allows access to old newspapers online, we continue to archive Indiana newspapers on microfilm. This searchable index will allow users to search our microfilmed holdings by title, city, county or date range. Until all the records have been moved, it’s still advisable to use the online holdings guides.

Biography Index: The Biography Index points users to biographical sketches of Hoosiers from dozens of print sources available in our collection. Originally on cards located in the Great Hall, they were later scanned and put online. Now the index is making a new home for itself on the Legacy platform. We had stopped indexing about 15 years ago, but this new platform will allow us to once again grow this amazing resource.

Original location of the Biography Index.

Legacy can now be found via direct link on the main page of the library’s INSPIRE website.

Stay tuned!

This blog post was written by Monique Howell of the Indiana Division at the Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at (317) 232-3670 or Ask-A-Librarian.

 

Materials using the phonetic alphabet

An unusual item from the Indiana State Library’s original print newspaper collection is Di Anglo Sacsun (ISLN Newspaper Room), a newspaper published in Boston from 1846-1848. Our holdings include a scattering of newspaper issues from the publication period of this phonetically-spelled newspaper. The paper states its mission as being “Devoted to the diffusion of knowledge and news, through the medium of phonotypy, or the true system of spelling words: that is, just as they are pronounced.” It was thought that material printed in phonetic spelling would be easier for non-native English speakers, or those who learned the English language by rote, to master.

This newspaper is written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which utilizes syllables that stand for different phonetic sounds that are common to all spoken languages.

On the left and right sides of the newspaper’s masthead are printed keys to pronunciation.

The International Phonetic Association (International Phonetic Association) is devoted to representing and promoting the International Phonetic Alphabet and championing its use by linguists, speech-language pathologists, classically trained singers, actors, and others.

Another item in the state library’s collection that utilizes the IPA is the Primer of Phonetics by Henry Sweet (ISLM 414 S974P).

This book, published in 1906, serves as an in-depth phonetics pronunciation key.

Pages from the Primer of Phonetics showing English sounds.

We also have a phonetic translation of the Book of Psalms from the Bible, De Buc ov Samz From de Oturizd Verzun:  Printed Foneticali in Paraleliz’mz (ISLM BS 1422 1849).

Although the phonetic alphabet did not become a popular spelling format for newspapers, it is used in dictionaries with pronunciation keys and serves as a standardized approach to language learning.

This blog post was written by Leigh Anne Johnson, Indiana Division librarian, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at (317) 232-3670 or “Ask-A-Librarian” at http://www.in.gov/library/ask.htm.

Searching for Death Notices or Obituaries in Indiana Newspapers

Searching newspapers for death notices or obituaries in Indiana newspapers can sometimes be challenging. In many cases, Indiana newspapers did not contain death information on the average citizen until well after the turn of the 20th Century.  Conversely, other titles contained birth, death and marriage announcements in the 1850’s or before. For example, the Indianapolis Locomotive, a humor and local gossip-based newspaper published death notices such as this one found in the August 25, 1849 edition:

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Libraries, Scholarly Journals and Star Wars: A One-on-One with Justin Davis

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A One-On-One Conversation with ISL Librarian Justin Davis
By: Ryan Brown

After an extensive tour of the Indiana State Library, Indiana Division Librarian Justin Davis was gracious enough to sit down with me for a brief interview. My mind was blown by the amount of historical items located at the ISL. There were numerous books, newspapers, maps, directories, and photographs positioned throughout the multi-level building. Everywhere I turned, Justin was showing me another item from the collection. I highly recommend that all Hoosiers come and visit the ISL — you will NOT be disappointed. Continue reading