Family and Local History Day 2010

 

VANKLEEK HILL – Imagine being able to go online and read, research and browse through 117 years of The Review.
Publisher Louise Sproule’s love and respect for local history has prompted her to make that possible. For the first time ever, history-lovers will have access to the oldest editions of The Review on the worldwide web.
“We are currently in the first phase of this project and it is something I am very excited and passionate about,” Sproule commented. “I have been thinking about this for a number of years and we are now in the process of making it happen.”
The first phase will see the uploading of Review issues from 1893 to 1904 on to the Internet. The project will be officially launched during Family and Local History Day, which is set to take place on Saturday, October 2.
On that day, people will be able to access the archives for free from anywhere in the world.
“For a small fee, people can sign up and have access to these issues of our newspaper,” Sproule explained. “They can go in to the archive and read the numerous interesting stories and tidbits of information going back more than 100 years. Imagine the family history you can learn from the birth, deaths and marriages listed in those pages? It’s going to be a fantastic resource for people. People can type in a name, place or event, and have the information they want right at their fingertips.”
Sproule takes the preservation of the newspaper’s past very seriously. Currently, the original hard copies of every single issue of The Review are preserved within hardcover books. Though every effort has been made to ensure the books are well-preserved, Sproule said time has taken its toll on the ancient pages.
“The pages are starting to disintegrate,” she said. As a result, Sproule has spent a number of years sending a couple of these books at a time to a Toronto-based company that has put the editions on microfilm. The process took quite a while, Sproule said, because she sent only a few copies of the precious books away at any one time to be microfilmed.
“Those are the only copies of the early editions of The Review that we have left,” she remarked. “I only sent a few at a time and when those came back, I sent more.”
From there, the microfilm was sent to a company in Montreal that specializes in scanning old negatives.
“It’s a very specialized process to scan old documents like that because the print is so small and you want to make sure the words are legible,” Sproule explained. “The end result is a very high-quality scan that makes even the smallest print legible, so when people do a search, they can get a result.”
Those scanned documents are then handed over to Review staff member Dorothy Hodge, who was responsible for renaming the documents and uploading them to the Internet archive.
Sproule said the plan is to make every single of edition of The Review, from past to present, available through the online archive. She estimates it will take at least another two years to complete the project.
“I have always felt that we are surrounded by history and going through the old editions of the paper, people will really get a chance to appreciate it. There is a wealth of information there and everything, from the good to the bad, the tragedies to the triumphs, has helped shape our community and the people who live here.”
Hodge said she has enjoyed working on the project and said she had fun reading the stories that appeared in print over 100 years ago.
“I was taken aback by the difference between the paper of yesteryear and the newspaper I work on every week,” she commented. “For instance a visit from a minister to a person’s home was on the front page under weekly news briefs.  The buying and selling of horses was also front page news which makes sense as their influence in daily life was so essential.”
She went on to note that, “After a couple of weeks of working on this project I have come to the conclusion that, the more things change the more they stay the same. Front page headlines from 100 years ago read of poor road conditions, mismanaged tax dollars, scandals and tragedies. For those who believe yesteryear was a gentler time, murders were not unheard of, in fact I would say that per capita people dealt with more violence and tragedy back then.”
The Review is encouraging everyone to stop by the offices on Family Local History Day to try the archives for free all day and sign up. Those interested in subscribing after October 2 will find links to the archives on www.thereview.ca, which is The Review’s website, at www.vankleekhill.ca and on www.Reviewbizlist.com.