Cary Memorial Library continues digitization of local newspaper

In years past, people were able to come into the Houlton Pioneer Times office and go downstairs into the morgue, discovering a plethora of aged newspapers from the 1800s with the Aroostook Times and Aroostook Pioneer to the combined local newspaper of today.
    However, with a cleanup at the Pioneer Times office, the tattered weekly broadsheets were transferred to Northeast Publishing Company in Presque Isle for safe keeping.
So, how can people find their historical roots? The Superior Court House library provides bound volumes of the local newspaper to flip through, which can be tedious work if dates are not readily available, but people may scan microfilm at Cary Library for more ease.
“The paper isn’t indexed, so unless someone knows the month and year of an event they want to find it can be very time consuming to physically look through the paper or scan the microfilm,” said Librarian Linda Faucher. “Many of the older newspapers are very brittle and wouldn’t hold up to being leafed through so we are thankful we have them on microfilm.”
A donation received in 2007 from Charles P. Starkey, Esq. of Portland, Ore. has provided another option for viewing the aged papers.
“The donation was to provide several upgrades to the children’s library and to replace the microfilm scanner with a new digital microfilm reader/scanner and printer,” said Faucher.
More than $15,000 of the donation was earmarked to start the digitalization of the Houlton Pioneer Times and to microfilm and scan 1992-2009.
“Mr. Starkey’s thoughtful gift continues a tradition started by his parents Earle and Eleanor Starkey,” explained Faucher. “We also received a grant from the Rotary Club of Houlton to digitize 38 years of the newspaper. All of our microfilm was sent to Donnegan Systems, Inc.”
However, Donnegan informed Faucher that 23 years of the microfilm was in poor condition and couldn’t be digitalized.
“It was very poor quality,” Faucher explained. “They will need to scan the original papers to microfilm and then convert to digital.”
The years that couldn’t be processed were 1956-1978 and 2010-11 will also need to be digitalized.
“We are fundraising to complete this project,” said Faucher. “Once all of the newspapers are digitized, we will then move to the next stage, which is to provide Bert Audette with digital copies and he and I will work on making them accessible from the library website.”
Audette, a Houlton native, now lives in central Maine, but continues to provide technical service to the Cary Library.
“He does most of it remotely,” said Faucher. “He talks me through some upgrades and occasionally comes to visit and work when necessary. It works well and we are extremely grateful that Bert continues to support our library.”
An old trunk was discovered in the attic of the Cary library filled with bundles of papers that most likely haven’t been opened for eons, according to a Houlton Pioneer Times story in May 2008 by Sarah Berthiaume.
Leigh Cummings, Jr., a library trustee and retiree, spent time poking through the library’s archives and special collections — finding papers, hand-bound volumes and maps that offer a snapshot of local history — including marriage records, militia rolls, property information and more from area towns. Most date back to the 19th century.
“Inside one carefully organized and protected book was a 1796 certificate from Samuel Adams, then governor of Massachusetts, marking the military appointment of John Putnam to the rank of Second Lieutenant. Putnam was one of Houlton’s first settlers, coming to the area by ship with Joseph Houlton; the record is believed to be part of a collection assembled by Francis Barnes, a local historian and ancestor of Forrest Barnes of Houlton,” wrote Berthiaume. “Other finds include a list of local ‘scholars’ for 1886, an assessor’s notebook from the 1800s which lists landowners and an inventory of all their property; another booklet records the birth and death of the Houlton Agricultural Society, a predecessor to today’s Houlton Fair Association.”
Berthiaume also said that attic exploration also uncovered a bulky 900-plus page volume in meticulous script which records the accounts for S. Cary & Co. The influential and affluent Shep Cary operated a store near Houlton’s Hancock’s Barracks (among other business ventures) and the accounting book documents, down to the penny, his business dealings with customers large and small.
Faucher noted the 900-plus journal has been digitized and can be viewed from a link on Cary Library’s website of online collections S. Cary and Company link.
“We received a grant from Maine Memory Network to have the journal digitized and Leigh and Sandy (Cummings) made an online exhibit using parts of it,” said Faucher. “We are in the process of converting it so it can be viewed from our website.”
Issues of the Houlton Pioneer Times were stored on 35mm microfilm, which proved to be expensive to work in terms of equipment cost, service repairs and limitations of the medium, said Faucher.
“Microfilm readers are expensive, can only be used by one person at a time and you must know what you’re looking for and where it is located, as microfilm is not indexed,” Faucher explained. “In the past decade, we have realized technological advances that make storage and transfer of vast quantities of information a nearly instantaneous experience. We can manipulate digital data much more quickly and easily. Text files of articles are completely and quickly searchable. Digitizing this content and all future content produced would allow us to make the Houlton Pioneer digital images and text files available for record searching and retrieval and could be viewed by people regardless of their location.”
Once the digital upgrade is completed, the images and text files will be stored on DVD and will be viewable over the local area network, Intranet, or the Internet with the “security of having the original microfilm archived for long-term preservation,” Faucher added.
Housing local history and supplying information for a popular trend of genealogy, the Houlton Pioneer Times, along with pieces of aged paper and dusty books, will be translated into a one-of-a-kind digital collection for anyone interested in discovering more about their heritage.