Coeur d'Alene Library puts newspaper archives online

The back issues of newspapers are a valuable resource for those researching the history of a community, doing genealogical work or who just enjoy images and stories from the past.

But handling bound volumes of newsprint can be cumbersome and the paper becomes more fragile with time. Each use threatens to damage the resource.

Past newspaper editions are available on microfilm but even that presents disadvantages. Newspapers that are not in a digital format can only be searched by date.

But a new service available through the Coeur d’Alene Public Library website — the Coeur d’Alene Digital Archives (CDA) — will make searching those back issues easier. CDA can be accessed at www.cdarchives.org.

The archives will eventually include all available issues of the Coeur d’Alene Press currently in the public domain — 1892 to 1964. The resource was created by scanning the library’s microfilm collection of the newspaper.

The project is being funded by the Coeur d’Alene Public Library — through a grant from the Friends of the Library — the Community Library Network, and the Molstead Library at North Idaho College.

Library Director Bette Ammon noted that users should be aware that the quality of the images can be limited based on the condition of the newspaper pages used to create the microfilm and on the condition of the microfilm itself.

“In some cases with the older editions, pages are taped together or torn and some issues were missing,” she said. “But users are going to enjoy how much easier their searches will be using digital images.”

The view can be enlarged, rotated, copied, and printed from the computer with results that are superior to the microfilm viewer’s optical system and its printer link, she said.

Also the material can be word searched rather than searched by date alone, although search capabilities are limited to the condition of the print.

“For example,” Ammon said, “if you want to find each reference to your family name through the years, the digital archive can do that for you.”

The library still has its collection of bound Coeur d’Alene Press dating from 1945 to 2016. The microfilm, produced by the Idaho Historical Society from its archives in Boise, dates from 1892 to the present.

NewsBank, a database which can also be accessed through the library’s website — www.cdalibrary.org — offers text-only newspaper stories and legals dating from October 2003 for the Coeur d’Alene Press and from July 1994 for the Spokesman-Review.