The Stevens County Library has microfilm from every newspaper printed in Stevens County. Included in the holdings are fifteen separate newspapers spanning almost 130 years. Although we have provided a database with many of the obituary records culled from these newspaper archives, looking through microfilm or hard copy newspaper files for particular information about any person mentioned in the newspapers is a laborious and time-consuming endeavor
The Stevens County Library is pleased to announce that digitization of the microfilm of the newspapers of Stevens County is now complete. Through a generous grant from the Board of the Parsons Trust, the library contracted with Advantage Preservation to scan more than sixty reels of microfilm and create an online website to house the information. A link to the new website is located on the library’s home page. There are no restrictions for accessing the online archives. Those that are interested in searching the database online need not be a Stevens County Library patron, as the information is free of charge to everyone.
The online address for the digital archives is www.stevenscounty.advantage-preservation.com. Exploration of the website archives can be accomplished by initiating a simple word search. More specific information can be obtained by enclosing the same search in quotation marks. For example, entering Stevens County Library will return mentions of Stevens, of county, and of library. Entering the same search as “Stevens County Library†will return articles where the three terms are used together in that particular order.
Searches in the archives will continue to improve with regularly scheduled software upgrades by Advantage Preservation. Current returns occasionally include random characters caused when the database tries to read imperfections on the page. The first upgrade will significantly reduce these random characters and is slated to be completed before the end of this year.
Please take time to investigate this wonderful new opportunity for local research provided by the Stevens County Library and the Board of the Parsons Trust.
