‘Small town with a big story’

MT. PLEASANT - Research for all things Mt. Pleasant just got a little easier.

Historical newspapers from the town, going back as far as the 1840s, are now digitized and available online for anyone to access.

The digitization of the papers was made possible through the Historical Resource Development Program grant from the state historical society, which was awarded to the Mt. Pleasant Historical Preservation Commission this past summer. The historical society provided $25,457 which will be matched locally with $12,728, which is currently still being raised.

The commission collaborated with the local public library, which had the microfilm versions of the historical papers, for the project. The project was done through Advantage Archives, where the digitized papers are stored online alongside other area papers including Washington, Kalona and Lone Tree.

Iowa Wesleyan University librarian and former Mt. Pleasant Public Library director Jeff Meyer said the project costs upward of $38,000 because of the technical process of digitization.

'It's a huge project, and the reason it costs so much is because you're talking of dozens and dozens and dozens of reels of microfilms,” he said.

Each page of the microfilm must be photographed, uploaded onto a database and then made available online.

Meyer said the new resource provides two big advantages.

'You can do this from your home. If you're looking for an obituary, you don't have to physically go to the library and search through microfilm,” Meyer said.

The librarian added researchers can now look for articles using keywords without manually winding through microfilm.

Meyer said maintaining the microfilm will be important moving forward because it provides a backup and is known as a preservation tactic for important documents.

The librarian said making the papers available will help share the history of Mt. Pleasant.

'Mt. Pleasant is a small town with a big story, and we have a fascinating history that involves an abolitionist senator; we have James Van Allen; we have sculptors and artists - all these different people who come from this town,” Meyer said.

The librarian said making the newspapers available online is the new frontier of making information accessible, an exciting step forward.

'The physical microfilm makes it accessible to those who are local or have the time to come to the library and that was a big step forward from not having microfilm. Now we're going to make it accessible to anybody who has access to the internet,” he said.