TENTERFIELD Public Library is at the forefront of New South Wales public libraries in digitising its local newspapers for easy public use.
Every Tenterfield newspaper from 1875 to 1955 is now available online so that people can access and research this invaluable collection.
The newspapers comprise the “Tenterfield Star” and the “Tenterfield Independent and New England Gazette”.
By using the Alchemy search database now available on each of the library’s eight public computers (simultaneously, if required), people will be able to do keyword searches, free of charge, on topics such as town, family, social and cultural history.
The project was funded through a July 2006 State Library Development Grant of $20,775 and a Tenterfield Shire Council cash-and-kind grant of $5,500.
It was managed by Council’s Information Technology and Finance Manager, Paul Chawner, and Manager of Library and Cultural Services, Robin Riley.
In launching “Tenterfield Public Library’s Digitised Tenterfield Newspaper Collection 1875-1955” on Friday, Deputy Mayor John Macnish said that new online search program was a vast improvement on the old microfiche system, which was difficult and time-consuming to use.
“This new search program will help us to build a fast and efficient mental picture of our past,” he said.
“It will come into its own especially for people searching for information about their family histories and their houses and properties.
“I know I’ll be spending a lot of time here looking up my family history and the history of my home, which is the former Bryan’s Gap School.”
Mrs Riley said that the project, in digitising and databasing newspaper collections, could be viewed as a pilot for other councils in New South Wales.
“To the best of our knowledge, we are the first public library in New South Wales to digitise its newspapers,” she said.
“Now, access to the historical content of a local newspaper collection will have never been easier.
“Its benefit for family and local historians and for school and TAFE students will be enormous.”
Both Councillor Macnish and Mrs Riley thanked the “Tenterfield Star’s” previous owners (Noelle Mackellow and Sue Jurd, and Geoff and Margie Hovey) and the current owner (Rural Press) for their copyright releases and support.
They also thanked the University of New England for releasing 97 reels of microfilm containing the newspapers for scanning into digital format.
Geoff Hovey, who with his wife Margy, owned the “Tenterfield Star” between 1983 and 1993, and who in 1985 donated the “Tenterfield Star” collection to the Tenterfield Public Library for microfilming, said the new search system was “really exciting”.
“This is something I’ve always wanted to see happen to the newspaper collection,” he said.
“And this project has done it in a way that I could not have imagined.
“The outcome is possible only because of the technology that has enabled the newspapers to be scanned, stored and converted back into a readily readable format.
“It’s a tremendous search facility for the community.”
Mr Chawner said that 40,000 images, each representing a page of the “Tenterfield Star” and the “Tenterfield Independent”, were contained in the Alchemy database.
“It is a very useful and flexible search engine,” he said. “The newspapers are loaded in the system in years.
A key word search will bring up every page on which the word appears and it will be highlighted in yellow.
“The search engine allows the user to narrow down a search and to highlight a particular part of the newspaper page for printing.”
The cost of printing an A4 sheet is 20c. People wanting to use the new key-word search facility will have use of a handout explaining the basic steps.
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