State Historical Society has been microfilming papers since 1930s

According to the MPA Constitution and Bylaws, every active print or specialty publication must send digital copies (PDFs) of every issue to MPA’s designee for archiving – the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO).

The collection and preservation of Missouri newspapers has been a primary mission of SHSMO since its founding by the MPA in 1898. SHSMO currently archives 202 Missouri titles: 101 print and e-editions, 88 e-edition only, and 13 print only.

At the moment, SHSMO isn’t able to collect pages from 16 online-only newspapers (half of which are MPA members). The basic issue is that a website cannot be behind a paywall for SHSMO’s software to crawl it, and SHSMO would need to make arrangements with the publishers on managing the public’s access to the web archive. The staff is actively researching methods to collect the online-only newspapers.

The majority of archived titles come through Newz Group, a Columbia-based media monitoring company that has partnered with state press and newspaper associations for the last 25 years. Newz Group has been at the forefront of digital newspaper collecting and short-term storage for more than a decade, collecting some 1,600 newspapers per month across America and providing members with complimentary text-searchable access to their archives through a secure publisher portal.

Since it began microfilming Missouri newspapers in the 1930s, SHSMO has digitized 980 papers and more than 11 million pages. “Our goal is preserving content and making it available to researchers,” says Katie Ziegler, SHSMO’s newspaper librarian.

All of the newspapers end up on microfilm, eventually. SHSMO staff and volunteers scan in the print issues in the basement of the Center for Missouri Studies in Columbia.

“Microfilming is our priority,” Ziegler says. “It is still the archival standard for preserving newspapers. For e-editions, we can bypass the scanning step. We use a machine called an archive writer that transfers the digital images directly onto film.”

The newspaper reels can be accessed in four different ways. Researchers may visit one of the six research centers in Columbia, Kansas City, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Springfield, or Rolla; request research assistance for a fee; arrange an interlibrary loan to a borrowing library for a fee; or publishers can purchase duplicate reels for $125 each.

Select Missouri newspapers hosted by Newspapers.com are freely available to view and search at https://shsmo.org/collections/newspapers/mdnp.

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At least two Missouri newspaper publishers purchase the duplicate microfilm reels for $125 each, as a service to their readers. Bryan Jones, publisher of the Morgan County Statesman, says that while he has bound volumes dating back to the late 1800s, the papers are brittle and sometimes disintegrate at the touch. One patron comes in weekly to access the reels on the Statesman’s microfilm reader, and another uses it at least twice a month. Office manager Dena Dean also relies on the reels to compile the weekly “Years Past” column.

Another regular is Jason Vansell, a history teacher at Morgan County R-II High School in Versailles. He sometimes asks his students to utilize the microfilm and/or the Statesman’s hardbound stacks to do history research and reports.

Trevor Vernon, publisher of Vernon Publishing, Inc., has a microfilm reader at the Eldon Advertiser that’s at least 40 years old. He sees more out-of-towners than locals using the service. “People say they’re only going to be here for 15 minutes but end up spending at least four hours,” he said. Staff member Terri Thebeau helps them load the reels.

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Given its special relationship with MPA, SHSMO recently agreed to scan in all the back issues of the Missouri Press News magazine for inclusion in its digitized collections. “This project will take some time, given the number of issues to scan and the fact that we rely on volunteers to do all of our scanning for digitization,” said Heather Richmond, senior archivist.

The first issue of the MPA magazine came out on July 10, 1933. Once the issues are digitized, they will be searchable by key words and names. This will be a great resource for local historians and everyone connected with MPA.