Michael Bushnell
Publisher

Archivists with the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO) traveled to the offices of The Northeast News on Monday to pick up almost 60 years of bound, archived editions of the community weekly to be taken to their Columbia, Mo., offices and transferred to a digital format, accessible on the internet.

SHSMO Newspaper Librarian Katelyn Ziegler, along with Library Information Assistant Peter McCarthy, packaged and loaded the bound editions that would soon be broken down page by page and scanned for digital archiving.

“Our newspaper on microfilm collection is nearing 60,000 reels,” Ziegler said. “Each reel can hold 1,200 newspaper pages and that translates to roughly 9.3 million newspaper pages currently.”

Once scanned, The Northeast News archives will be available online at SHSMO.org or through a digital portal at The Northeast News. The collection will also be available via subscription at Newspapers.com.

“This is an incredibly important project given there’s almost 60 years of community history that’s being transferred from the printed page to an archived, digital format,” Publisher Michael Bushnell said.

After scanning, the unbound newspaper pages will be returned to The Northeast News offices or they could be donated to a local museum or archive facility to be determined at a later date. The first set of editions should be available online shortly after the first of next year.