The digital archive for researching Greene County history has been expanded, the Greene County Librarians Association (GCLA) announced this week. The “Community History Archive of Greene County, Iowa” website at https://greenecounty.advantage-preservation.com/ is free and easy to use and offers a wide variety of historical resources representing all areas of the county.
This online archive of county history began in 2012 when the Jefferson public library converted 150 years of Jefferson newspapers from microfilm to digital images, making them available to search on an Internet website.
The archive has now been expanded to include newspapers from Churdan, Grand Junction and Scranton plus many other Greene County historical resources. Rippey and Paton newspapers are included in the Grand Junction newspapers, as well as articles about Dana. Cooper and Farlin news is included in the Jefferson newspapers.
“Newspapers preserve the history of our communities,” says Jane Millard, director of the Jefferson public library. Google Analytics tracks usage statistics on the website. “We have had very consistent usage of the Jefferson newspaper archive with an average of 1,883 searches each year. The highest usage is within Greene County and Iowa. Statistics also show usage from all other states and many other countries. We have always wanted to expand this resource to include resources that represent the history of the whole county,” explained Millard.
Millard was excited two years ago when three other libraries expressed interest in digitizing their town newspapers. She presented the idea of expanding the digital archive as a collaborative project at the next GCLA meeting. Millard suggested that they digitize even more historical resources beyond the county newspapers if they could raise enough funds.
The librarians began fundraising in their communities. With assistance from the Greene County Genealogical Society (GCGS), the librarians put together a list of important county historical resources. Writing a grant to the Greene County Community Foundation was the next step. When the grant was approved in April 2020, GCLA contracted with Advantage Archives in Cedar Rapids and the project was begun.
Back issues of The Scranton Journal (1884-2017), Churdan Reporter (1891-1958), and Grand Junction Globe & Globe-Free Press ((1905-1999) were digitized and added to the Jefferson Bee & Herald archive website. Three boxes of other historical resources were sent to Cedar Rapids to be digitized. The project was recently completed with digitized Rippey Boosters (1920 & 1922) and the Paton military services records of WWI and WWII.
Other resources on the new website include indexes of birth, marriage, and death records, census and cemetery indexes, church centennial books, military records, an index to biographical sketches of Greene County residents from 1887, articles and memories of the old coal mining town of Angus, the Grand Junction fire department history, Terrill diaries, Paton, Scranton and Rippey centennial books, 100 years of memories of Adaza, and several other printed historical resources. The oldest resource on the new website is the 1856 Iowa state census of Greene County.
“Searching for information on the archive website is similar to searching for information on Google. Enter a name or keyword in the search field, and all the instances that name or keyword appears in all of these resources will be listed as search results. You can narrow down the results by date and resource and also print, email or save the articles you find,” said Paton library director Kimberly Bohnet.
Anyone wishing to do research on historical happenings in Greene County can find articles of interest about places such as county landmarks, parks or businesses, events such as sports, weddings, festivals, or weather, or people such as awards, interviews, ancestors, obituaries, and family reunions.
“This project has been on my personal bucket list for years,” said Luann Waldo, editor of The Scranton Journal. Waldo says she frequently gets inquiries from individuals who want information from back editions of the newspapers. “The bound copies dating back to the 1880s are so fragile, they were literally falling apart and we couldn’t allow anyone to use them. Now with the newspapers searchable online, our history is preserved in a digital format that won’t crumble or be lost.”
There are three main benefits to digitizing records: preservation, access, and storage. Saving paper copies of years of newspapers in archival storage boxes would fill up a small warehouse and access to them would be limited. In the 1980s, hard copies of these newspapers were converted to microfilm. That was the best technology of the time and quite an improvement on storage space with hundreds of reels of microfilm stored in a metal cabinet in libraries.
Digitization is the newest technology to preserve newspapers and other documents. It also increases accessibility to the newspapers by making them available online, and eliminates the need for physical storage space in our libraries. “We had years of old newspapers stored under the counters. They were difficult to access and in very fragile condition. Now we can find everything easily on the computer without handling any of the newspapers,” said Churdan librarian Marilyn Tilley.
“For those of us with deep roots in Greene County, this archive is like finding buried treasure. I’ve been researching my family’s Greene County roots for over 40 years and have been able to uncover tidbits that I never knew about my family,” said Terry Clark, assistant director of the Jefferson library.
The Greene County Genealogical Society (GCGS) was pleased to support the expansion of the archive. “People will find so much more information to help them with their family history research now,” added Arlene Johnson, GCGS president.
The project was funded by a Greene County Community Foundation grant and donations from the Greene County board of supervisors’ Louis Dreyfus fund, the Greene County Genealogical Society, The Scranton Journal, The Scranton Public Library Foundation, state funds for libraries, memorial gifts and donations from private individuals.
“The Grand Junction library held a bake sale, and Scranton raised over $1,000 at a community fundraising event,” added Wendy Johnson, director of the Marchant Library in Scranton and president of the Greene County Librarians Association. Several other organizations sponsored the first archive project in 2010.
The total cost of this second phase of the project was $23,556. “The digital archive will continue to grow. We will add more resources as funding is available,” added Phyllis Bardole, director of the Rippey public library. This includes adding another year of recent Jefferson and Scranton newspapers each year.
Donations to this project may be left at any of the six libraries in Greene County. “It’s important to preserve our county’s history for future generations,” said Diane Kafer, director of the Grand Junction library.
Public libraries across the United States have been leaders in creating digital archives for their communities. The Greene County Librarians thanked all their partners and sponsors for their help in making this county-wide historical archive possible.
“We think this new website is so easy to use, and our county school teachers and students will also find it useful when doing local history projects,” said Shari Minnehan, director of the Churdan public library.
Persons who want more information or a personal demonstration of the new website can ask at their local library.
