Discover York history: 100 years of York newspapers are now online

YORK — Thanks to a generous grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, 100 years’ worth of the York Weekly and other town newspapers have been completely digitized.

York Public Library, in partnership with Old York Historical Society, Advantage Preservation, and York Weekly, recently announced the long-awaited unveiling of the York History Digital Archive.

For decades, the Old York Historical Society has preserved the town newspaper collection by microfilming it. The film is not indexed, however, and the only way to view it was to go page by page.

“York Public Library, with their expertise in digital technology, is opening a door to unprecedented discovery of York’s history," said Joel Lefever, executive director & chief curator at Old York Historical Society. "There's nothing like a local newspaper, at all, for giving you a real good picture of what was important in a community, what was going on, who the personalities were."

Building upon a partnership established nearly five years ago when Old York transferred their genealogical collection to the library, Old York agreed to lend the library 100 reels of microfilm, spanning the years 1891-2016.

The library secured a $20,000 grant from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation and subsequently sent the film to Advantage Preservation in Iowa. There, it was digitized, and to make it fully keyword searchable, the content was run through optical character recognition (OCR) software, and indexed.

“It can’t be overstated how significant this archive is for the community," said Michelle Sampson, executive director of York Public Library. "Freely available and keyword searchable to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, it adds breadth, depth, and context to the local history materials in each of our institutions. Part of the library’s mission is to provide free and equitable access to all, and we are beyond grateful to the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation for making it all possible.”

The database is currently “live” and can be accessed from the library’s website at yorkpubliclibrary.org/archives. The library has also prepared short instructional videos for how to use the database, which are accessible on their website.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Discover York history: 100 years of York newspapers are now online