Making the DO archives available to world

Over the last century, the pages of the Daily Orange have informed generations of students, faculty, and staff, telling them what they need to know about living and studying at Syracuse. Due to the extraordinary commitment of its staff, the paper has evolved into the most influential and respected source for news and information on campus. And by putting out the newspaper each day, the staff has created a unique historical record of the people and events that have shaped the Syracuse University.

At the moment, however, accessing this comprehensive historical record can be a challenge. The only complete archive of the newspaper is held in the SU Library and Archives, and accessing it requires traveling to campus and scrolling through dusty reels of microfilm. Quickly finding articles on a specific person or topic is a daunting task. Because of this, relatively few people are able to take advantage of the work done by hundreds of Daily Orange employees since 1903.

In recent years, new technology has made it possible to scan newspapers and make them available online. The resulting website allows the user to browse the paper page by page, zoom in on particular stories or ads, and even search the paper by name or keyword! A number of major newspapers, including the Post-Standard, are currently exploring this process as a way to make the information contained in their archives available to the public. Many libraries are also using it to make historical newspaper collections available electronically.

Over the last year, the Daily Orange Alumni Association has been working with the SU Archives to determine the feasibility of placing the complete archives of the Daily Orange online. We recently completed a demonstration project that showcases the technology that would likely be used to carry out this project. (See the reverse side for information on how you can try it out.)

While this project has immense potential, it will require considerable resources to complete. We estimate that the overall cost to digitize the first 100 years of the newspaper will be in the neighborhood of $180,000, or about $1,800 for each year the paper published. In the coming weeks and months, we will be looking at options for raising money to move this project forward.

This technology promises to open the archives of the DO to the world, and we believe it would quickly become a valuable resource for alumni, students, researchers, and anyone else interested in the history of the university. It would also help enhance the reporting of the current DO staff by making it easier for them to include deeper background information in their stories.

We would love to hear your thoughts on how we should proceed on this project. You can find my contact information and that of President Stephen Cohen on the back of this flyer. Please feel free to contact either of us with comments or suggestions.

--David Dwiggins ‘98
Sept. 19, 2003

 

 

 

Try it out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have questions or comments about this project, please contact:

 

David Dwiggins

david at dwiggins dot net