1989
February
To date a total of $166,325 in private funding had been raised as matching funds for the microfilming phase; an additional $133,675 was needed to fulfill the full NEH ($300,000) match offer.
March
The Technical Committee asked for approval from NEH to cease the production of the copy negative (print negative) as a cost saving measure. It was anticipated that this production change would allow the Project to microfilm 20-25% more papers, and speed delivery of film to its intended repositories.
May
The Technical Committee considered a proposal from David Hoffman, Project Director, and Bill Hamill, Microfilming Project Coordinator to approve a lower “fixed” average allocation per county for microfilming to $3,149. From April 1987 to May 1989, the average dollar amount spent on microfilming titles in each county was $10,225. Fewer dollars designated per county would ensure some filming would be done in all 67 Pennsylvania counties.
June
Pennsylvania Project staff from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and from the University of Pittsburgh, along with David Hoffman attended the USNP meeting in Washington, D.C.
David Hoffman proposed to the Technical Committee a microfilming expenditure “formula” for the 30 remaining counties where filming had not yet started or where no commitment had been made with repositories or private collectors for filming of their papers.
July
The Technical Committee met to approve the list of titles to be microfilmed, and reviewed the “formula” to determine funding for microfilming in the remaining 30 counties. Typical, known costs for microfilming were calculated at $70 to film a year of a weekly newspaper and $450 to film a year of a daily newspaper. The Committee recognized that many more titles were worthy of preservation, but that current funding levels would permit only a limited number of titles to be considered. Title selection for Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties remained; however, $50,000 in Pew Memorial Trust funds were available for microfilming these titles.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania Project cataloger Barbara Kurimchak resigned to accept a position at Temple University.
All microfilming for the Project was expected to be completed by the end of December 1990.
August
NEH extended the Project funding through December 1990 and released the balance of the $300,000 for the microfilming phase.
September
Cumulative statistics for Pennsylvania Newspaper Project entries in the OCLC database, from the beginning of the Project through September 1989 were:
New Records created: 5,601
New LDRs created: 28,254
These figures represented workforms which had final CONSER authentication at the University of Pittsburgh.
October
Project microfilming vendor, MATCO/ROMCOR of Camp Hill, PA, acquired a microfilming firm in Hazleton, PA earlier in the year which resulted in MATCO/ROMCOR changing its company name to IMR, Inc. As of October both the Camp Hill and Hazleton filming sites were microfilming for the Project.
November
The Project produced 1,758,722 frames of master negative film and twice that number of frames of service positives from the beginning of the microfilming phase in April 1987 to the end of November 1989.
December
The University of Pittsburgh’s formal participation on the Pennsylvania Newspaper Project ended on December 31.
Cataloging was completed in the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania.
Bob Harriman, Technical Coordinator of the USNP visited the Historical Society of Pennsylvania cataloging and microfilming site, and made a visit to the IMR, Inc. facility in Camp Hill.
The State Library’s collection of microfilmed newspaper reels grew by more than 1,770 reels as service positive copies were deposited at the State Library for interlibrary loan purposes.
Noted “Concerns for the Future” outlined in David Hoffman’s NEH Final Report for the period July – December 1989 include:
- Many papers remain to be filmed. A means needs to be provided to continue filming as funds can be found until substantially the entire corpus of unfilmed papers has been preserved.
- There is a need for better awareness, of the part of all types of repositories, of proper procedures for care and housing of newspapers and other library materials. A comprehensive public awareness program is needed to focus attention on library materials preservation and conservation issues.
- Those who are responsible for repositories of newspapers still need to know more about the importance of following standard procedures in filming.
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