“Digitization preserves the past for the future.”

The digital archive is a cooperative project of the Greene County Public Libraries to preserve and provide FREE access to newspapers, books and other resources that have recorded the history of our county.

This online archive of county history began in 2012 when the Jefferson Public Library converted 150 years of Jefferson newspapers from microfilm to digital images, making them available to search on an Internet website.  In 2020, the archive was expanded to include newspapers from Churdan, Grand Junction and Scranton plus many other Greene County historical resources.  Rippey and Paton newspapers are included in the Grand Junction newspapers, as well as articles about Dana.  Cooper and Farlin news are included in the Jefferson newspapers.

The Greene County Librarians Association (GCLA) coordinated the 2020 project.  Fundraising events held in each community along with a Greene County Community Foundation grant provided the funding for the project.  Many local organizations and individuals also contributed funds to complete both phases of the project.  The sponsors are listed below.

In addition to the newspapers, other resources added to the website include indexes of birth, marriage, and death records, census and cemetery indexes, church centennial books, military records, an index to biographical sketches of Greene County residents from 1887, articles and memories of the old coal mining town of Angus, the Grand Junction fire department history, Terrill diaries, Paton, Scranton and Rippey centennial books, 100 years of memories of Adaza, and several other printed historical resources.  The oldest resource is the 1856 Iowa state census of Greene County.

Anyone wishing to do research on historical happenings in Greene County, can find articles of interest about places such as county landmarks, parks or businesses, events such as sports, weddings, festivals, or weather, or people such as awards, interviews, ancestors, obituaries, and family reunions.  For those with roots in Greene County who enjoy doing family history research, this archive will be like finding buried treasure!

There are three main benefits to digitizing records:  preservation, access, and storage.  In the 1980s, print copies of these newspapers were converted to microfilm.  That was the best technology of the time and reduced the need for storage space with hundreds of reels of microfilm fitting into one small cabinet.  Digitization is the newest technology to preserve newspapers and other documents.  It also increases accessibility to the newspapers by making them available online from anywhere in the world, and eliminates the need for physical storage space in our libraries.

The digital archive will continue to grow, and more resources will be added as funding becomes available.  This includes adding another year of Jefferson and Scranton newspapers, which are still in publication, each year.  The total cost of both phases of this digitization project was over $35,000.  Donations to this project may be left at any of the six libraries in Greene County. 

Public libraries across the United States have been leaders in creating digital archives for their communities.  The Greene County Librarians wish to thank all of our partners and sponsors for their help in making this county-wide historical archive possible.  We would also like to thank Advantage Archives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for their work in digitizing Greene County’s historical resources.

If you would like more information or a personal demonstration of the new website, please ask at your local library.

SPONSORS

The following organizations and individuals have contributed funding to the Greene County digital archive project from its beginning Phase 1 in 2012 and Phase 2 in 2020:

Greene County Community Foundation

Greene County Genealogical Society

Jefferson Rotary Club

Memorial Gifts & Individual Donors

Greene County Board of Supervisors

Friends of the Jefferson Public Library

Bee & Herald Publishing

Jefferson Kiwanis Club

Morning Star Masonic Lodge #159

Home State Bank

The Scranton Journal, Luann Waldo, editor

Community Fundraising Events

Direct State Aid to Libraries

Scranton Public Library Foundation

“Newspapers preserve the history of our communities.”

Microfilm was the best method of preserving newspapers from the 1980s to the 2010s.  It is very time consuming to search reels of microfilm unless the exact date of an event is known, and access is limited to being in the Library that stores the microfilm.

Bound covers and fragile newsprint pages show damage from use and non-archival storage of original print copies of back issues of newspapers.

Librarians and genealogy volunteers met with Advantage Preservation in the fall of 2019 to select various other printed materials of historic and genealogical value to preserve and make more widely accessible for research by adding them to the digital archives.