Presentation

It's a Slog: Digging Your Way Through Large-Scale Newspaper Collections

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Abstract

Many archivists are eyeing their local newspaper's photo morgue, with both excitement and dread. These collections are powerful resources for researchers of all kinds, from genealogists looking for a picture of an ancestor to local historians tracking local changes to academics studying the evolution of photojournalism. But they are often extremely large, putting our accumulated archival wisdom to the test. Five speakers from three different institutions will discuss how they worked through negotiations of deeds of gift, moving the collection, arranging and describing the collection and raising funds to support all of this work, all while managing the expectations of stakeholders including community users, donors, and administrators. While the discussion is about newspaper photo morgues, the lessons learned apply to all large collections.

Presenters from University of Louisville will discuss their work to acquire, relocate, and obtain financial support for the local newspaper's photo morgue. The gift was decades in the negotiation; the realities of receiving and supporting the collection were simultaneously beyond their wildest dreams, and worse than their worst nightmare.

The University of Memphis has two newspaper morgues, received almost 40 years apart; the first in 1983 and the other in 2019. This presentation will discuss the differences in how the collections were transferred to Special Collections—both legally and physically—but also the similar challenges of processing and access posed by two of the largest collections held by a smaller academic archive.

How to Cite:

Daniels, C., Reilly, E., Chaudron, G., Wroblewski, J. & Zuber, H., (2023) “It's a Slog: Digging Your Way Through Large-Scale Newspaper Collections”, MAC Annual Meeting Presentations 2023(1).