Points North Newsletters
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April 2008
Millionth Page Added To Newspaper Site
Only a short time ago a mere 10 newspapers consisting of 105,000 pages made up the Northern New York Historical Newspapers website. Now just over three years later, the millionth page has been added!
The NNY Historical Newspapers site, found at news.nnyln.net, now holds 1,004,000 pages from more than 28 newspapers. Along with the exciting announcement of the millionth page, the site itself has just been through a major redesign so researchers can now search by county. But if they prefer, they can still search by looking at a list of the individual newspapers.
The Northern New York Historical Newspapers are provided by the Northern New York Library Network based in Potsdam to enhance access to the region’s unique local history.
The millionth page is part of the 84,000 pages of the Potsdam Courier-Freeman, which is the latest newspaper to be added to the site. The inclusion of this paper includes a run from 1861 to 1989. In 1989 the Potsdam Courier-Freeman merged with the Massena Observer to become the Daily Courier-Observer, which still serves as the local newspaper today.
The addition of the Potsdam Courier-Freeman was made possible with the cooperation of the publisher of the Daily Courier-Observer, and the financial support of the Friends of the Potsdam Museum.
Potsdam Public Museum Director/Curator Mimi Van Deusen noted it is happenstance that the run of the Potsdam Courier-Freeman consists of the millionth page.
"This is wonderful for the entire community," she said. "To be the millionth page is a pure thrill!
"This is a unique tool for research purposes at the Potsdam Public Museum, and we would like to thank the Northern New York Library Network, the Friends of the Potsdam Museum who funded the project, and the Daily Courier-Observer for preserving this invaluable resource for the local community and posterity," Ms. Van Deusen said.
NNYLN Systems Administrator Thomas Blauvelt noted the entire newspapers project has been very popular, and the cooperation from many levels has been wonderful.
"It is being used by people with a wide range of interests. The technology is not perfect, but it does allow us to provide greatly increased access to these newspapers," he said.
"The libraries of the region have been very cooperative in sharing their collections. We have also had excellent cooperation from the owners and publishers of the newspapers now on the site; they all appreciate the value of the historical records their companies have created and they have been generous in allowing us to share them with everyone," Mr. Blauvelt stated.
As part of the new county search component on the Northern New York Historical Newspapers website, researchers can click on any of the seven counties encompassed in the Northern New York Library Network’s region and view the available newspapers.
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