UNITED COUNTIES of SD&G, Ontario – Wrapping up the SDG Counties’ newspaper digitization project is no small feat, in fact it is the project that is a victim of its own success.
“The good news and the bad news is, we’re not done yet,” said MP Eric Duncan, who has spearheaded the digitization project for the past two years. “We’ve been very impressed – overwhelmed quite frankly – by the past couple of years with the number of individuals and businesses that have come forward with significant amounts of the collection. ”
Duncan said that so far, 180,000 newspaper pages have been digitized including all issues of the Glengarry News, Winchester Press, and the Iroquois Chieftain. Some issues of The Leader and the Chesterville Record have been completed, along with photo scanning for the Lost Villages Historical Society.
Additional donations have increased the collection including a sizable donation of over 50 years worth of the Iroquois Post (1930-1981) by former owner Howard Kirkby.
Other donations have included pre-Confederation copies of the Dundas Courier, predecessor to The Leader, and the Morrisburg Banner newspapers.
Duncan estimated that there are between 25,000 and 30,000 pages remaining.
One of the challenges that has prolonged the digitization project is the Counties’ contractor, Mallorytown-based Image Advantage, has been closed for part of the year due to COVID-19 related restrictions.
There is still $25,000 remaining from the 2020 budget allocation for continuing the scanning project. Each page costs about $1 to digitize.
Duncan said that a report from Counties CAO Tim Simpson would be provided later into the year about what would still need to be funded.
The next aspect for the project is getting the newspaper files online to be searchable by the public. Duncan said the current costs for the Glengarry Archives for its digitized Glengarry News files costs that society between $4,000 and $5,000 per year. A lower-cost option for hosting the files is being investigated with the goal of having all the SDG newspapers in one searchable site.
“We are very grateful for the support of Counties Council in the 2019 and 2020 budgets,” Duncan said.
Duncan also updated council that the City of Cornwall has committed to its own newspaper digitization project to digitize the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder and Seaway News papers. An additional challenge for that project is that old copies of the Standard-Freeholder were photographed on microfiche, which is a different process to digitize. That project is set to begin in 2021.
