Library A Week

History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library

2010 no. 47

Library Profile

Library Name: History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library         Location: 246 Library, University of Illinois Type: Academic Mission: To support the academic mission of the University of Illinois by providing premier collections and services to our users.  To meet the library and information needs of students, faculty and staff at the University of Illinois and the general public. Website: http://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/ LTLS Directory Page: http://www.lincolntrail.info/zin.html Member Since: 1973   An interview with Mary Stuart.

What is unique about your library?

Many people were surprised at the consolidation of the History and Newspaper libraries in 2005, but it made perfect sense to historians.  No one uses newspaper resources like historians. We have back issues of newspapers in print and on microfilm. In addition, the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library maintains the Library’s general microforms collection.  Altogether we have about 220,000 reels of microfilm and about 125,000 are newspapers. In addition, the University of Illinois Library has one of the world’s largest collections of weekly agricultural newspapers. Some of these go back to the early 19th century. These newspapers were never indexed, and the sole point of access was the date of the issues . For this reason they were excellent candidates for digitization, and so far we’ve completed digitization of more than 380,000 pages for our “Farm, Field and Fireside” repository.  This material is now keyword searchable, as well as browsable (http://www.library.illinois.edu/dnc/).

What are the primary goals and objectives of your library?

Our main goal is to provide services and resources to anyone on campus who is doing research in history, philosophy, religion, African American studies, Native American studies, or Jewish studies. We are open to the public and will help anyone in Illinois or anywhere in the world who has interest in our subject areas. We try to stay focused on providing excellent service to our patrons.

What cooperative efforts are you currently doing?

We work with the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities through the United States Newspaper Program (ending in 2010) and the National Digital Newspaper Program. We have received several newspaper digitization grants from other sources as well. We also work closely with the Department of History here at UIUC. We want to make sure that the library instruction we provide meets the needs of our history students. We have produced some videos on using the Library to do historical research, we meet with many history classes each semester, both undergraduate and graduate-level, to help the students with their research.

Tell us a story about your library.

For several years, we had a team of people who traveled throughout the state to inventory and catalog our state’s newspaper heritage. This work was funded by NEH under the United States Newspaper Program. In some cases we borrowed the original newspapers in order to microfilm them. We quickly learned how deeply people in local Illinois communities care about their cultural heritage. They are thrilled that we have been able to preserve these rapidly deteriorating newspapers for future generations. We also learned that there are many local newspapers that didn’t survive, and tragically this part of our state’s cultural heritage is lost forever. So it has been very gratifying to be able to rescue some of this unique material from the “slow fires” of deterioration.

If money were no object, what services would you add?

The first thing I would do is to restore our hours of operation and staffing. With more staff (and money) we could move faster with our newspaper digitization projects. I would also invest in building the collections, both print and digital. I would definitely purchase more commercially-produced online historical newspapers, such as the Times of India, the Baltimore Afro-American, the Detroit Free Press, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. We receive many requests from students and other researchers for these historical newspapers.

What is popular in your library?

The specialized expertise that we provide to help our patrons find the resources they need and learn how to use them.

How does your library use online tools to connect to your user?

We have a website and use AIM reference to chat with our patrons from the website. There are also a great many online databases and other resources for our patrons to access, and numerous online guides (“Libguides”) and videos that link from our web site to help people use these resources.

Request a visit to your library If you would like to set up a special date for us to visit your library contact LTLS Consultant Michelle Ralston Library of the Week is published by Lincoln Trail Libraries System, 1704 W. Interstate Dr., Champaign, IL 61822 217-352-0047  -   ltls@lincolntrail.info Executive Director: Jan Ison, Editorial and Design Team: Michelle Ralston and David Lottes