About the Collection:

The Library of Congress’ Chronicling America project is a searchable collection of U.S. newspapers from 1777-1963.  Included in the collection is the Big Sandy News from 1885-1922, and can be accessed here.

In May 2022, the Lawrence County Public Library began a project with Advantage Archives to convert the Library’s microfilm collection of the Big Sandy News not covered by the Chronicling America project to digital, as well as the remaining hard copies of the newspaper to microfilm and digital.  The project was completed by Advantage Archives in September 2022.  Due to the earlier Big Sandy News microfilm reels containing multiple years, there is some overlap between Chronicling America and the Lawrence County Public Library’s collection from 1920-1922.  The Library’s digital collection covers September 10, 1920 through June 28, 2023, and can be accessed here.

Between the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America project and the Lawrence County Public Library’s digitization project, an almost complete record of the Big Sandy News from 1885 through June 28, 2023 is now available online for library patrons to browse.  Issues from July 5, 2023 to current are available in hard copy at the Library, and can be browsed by patrons upon request.  The current month is available in our periodicals section.

Why digitize the Collection?

The Lawrence County Public Library is the only source of the Big Sandy News from 1885 to current.  Before the digitizing project, part of the Collection was on microfilm and the rest in hard copy.  Over time, microfilm begins to degrade, even when stored safely. The film may start to develop spots, shrink, flake, become brittle, or break. As the microfilm is used more and more, it increases the chance for damage to occur.  As for hard copy newspapers, they are easily damaged, the ink may fade, and over time can become fragile.  A digitizing process to convert the physical microfilm and newspaper hard copies to digital files is the go-to suggestion for preserving items like the Big Sandy News.  For more information about the importance of microfilm digitizing, click here.

The Big Sandy News microfilm collection is still available for patrons to use, and we have two microfilm readers available for public use–one analog, and one digital.