WESTFIELD-For decades, the newspapers of The Westfield News have been bound yearly – ensuring a historical record for the Greater Westfield area. Now, with digitization technology, all of those newspapers will one day be accessible to the public, thanks to the Archives Department at the Westfield Athenaeum.
“We have received permission from The Westfield News to digitize and make the volumes available publicly,” said Susan Creighton, archives and museum coordinator, Westfield Athenaeum. “I’m not yet sure whether it’s every newspaper during those years, but it certainly is a majority of them.”
Susan Creighton, archives and museum coordinator, Westfield Athenaeum, stands next to bound volumes of The Westfield News that will one day be digitized for the public to access. (Submitted photo)
Creighton noted that the newspaper donation includes 145 bound volumes of newspapers spanning 1984-2011. The bound volumes have been created over the years by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., of Agawam.
“We are very happy that the Westfield Athenaeum accepted the old copies of The Westfield News and that they will be digitizing them to preserve the local history contained in these pages,” said Fran Smith, general manager of Reminder Publishing, LLC (owners of The Westfield News).
Earlier this year, when Patrick Berry, former owner and president of The Westfield News Group, was in the process of selling the newspaper and its associated publications to Reminder Publishing, he began liquidating old furniture, file cabinets and miscellaneous office equipment that had accumulated over the years.
“I knew the significance of the bound volumes and had approached the Westfield Athenaeum multiple times to see if they would want them for their archives,” said Berry, noting now he believes that the initial conversations were misunderstood.
“I always felt it was a shame that no institution wanted them,” said Berry. “I don’t think they understood they were bound volumes.”
With the pending sale, Berry recruited Vicki Benford of Yellow Bear Market in Southwick to start purging the bound volumes of newspapers and miscellaneous items.
Benford, who specializes in organizing estate sales, said once she realized the volume of the items to categorize and sell, she set a sale date and advertised on Craig’s List.
“An older gentleman was only interested in the older bound volumes,” said Benford, who noted that the volumes the man loaded on his truck were from the 1940s to the 1970s.
“I ended up giving the older volumes away to the man who is a collector,” said Berry.
Once Athenaeum staff learned the remaining volumes were similar to large encyclopedias and bound, Berry noted “that changed the dynamic.”
“We are hoping that the gentleman who took the older volumes will consider bringing them to the Athenaeum to be digitized and can then be returned to him,” said Marie Brazee, office manager, The Reminder Publications-West.
A page from one of the bound volumes of The Westfield News. (Lori Szepelak photo)
For Creighton, the next step will be to seek funding to purchase the type of large, flatbed, high-quality scanner needed to do the digitization.
“We will also have to purchase sufficient online storage space to house the scanned images,” said Creighton. “If we can get that funding, then we could begin a digitization project.”
Once funding is secured, Creighton and Kate Deviny, Athenaeum director, will map out a process for what steps would be needed, and determine which steps could be completed by volunteers or interns, and which steps would need to be completed by either library staff or library- or history-graduate student interns with background knowledge about history or archival practices.
“The goal would be to create chunks of the scanning work that different volunteers or interns could step in and out of easily while maintaining the overall flow of the work,” said Creighton.
Creighton said another “big part” of the project would be assigning metadata once the pages were scanned.
“Metadata is all the information about what’s been scanned that allows you to search for images online,” said Creighton, adding the process can be time-consuming and sometimes costly to do.
Creighton noted the metadata project might be a “good focus” for college student history or library science internships.
“To make archival copies, you scan images at a very high resolution which takes up a lot of space on computers,” said Creighton. “When you have hundreds or even thousands of scanned newspaper pages like that, it adds up.”
While Deviny and Creighton know it is too soon to determine how many people would work on the project, it will involve striking a balance between having enough people to keep the work moving forward, and not involving so many people that it becomes unmanageable.
“Any volunteers or interns would need to get some initial training on how to do archival-quality scanning, how to name the files properly, and where to store them so that we can keep track of our progress,” said Creighton.
Creighton noted that digitization projects are “wonderful” in providing online access to all kinds of “fascinating” archival treasures.
“This donation is so important to the Athenaeum and its archives, as the archives are established to collect, preserve and provide access to original documents that tell the story of Westfield’s history,” said Creighton, noting the Westfield Athenaeum archives also has physical copies of newspapers including the Westfield Journal from 1833-1835; the Westfield News-Letter from 1841 to around 1900; the Hampden Federalist from 1816-1822, and the Westfield Evening Journal from 1917-1919.
Newspapers covering the Westfield area over the years have also included the Westfield Register, 1828-1831; Westfield Standard, 1850-1852; Westfield Western Hampden Times, 1869-1884; Westfield Times and Newsletter, 1893-1906; Westfield Daily Times, 1906-1907; Westfield Daily Journal, 1916-1925, and the Westfield Valley Herald, 1926-1940.
“There are various online services such as Ancestry.com that will offer to digitize newspapers and make them available, but many of those options then require paid subscriptions to access,” said Creighton. “The Athenaeum really hopes to be able to digitize this collection to make it available free of charge to the residents of Westfield as well as to the broader public.”
