SDG — The Dundas County Archives is asking for up to $200,000 in local taxpayer dollars to digitize old newspapers.
Archives board member Eric Duncan pitched the United Counties Council of SD&G on the idea last week. He and the board await an official response from the local governing body on the request.
Eric Duncan addresses the seventh annual Mayor’s Community Breakfast. Zandbergen photo, Nation Valley News
Duncan estimates a cost of $1 per page to preserve the historical copies of four local newspapers still in operation in the United Counties (outside Cornwall), along with a number of defunct titles that have come out of the woodwork as well.
The former mayor of North Dundas says the collected material offers a wealth of local information and ought to be preserved for posterity in searchable form on the web.
The CBC’s Alan Neal interviewed Duncan about the project today:
In this photo from November 2018, Mayors Eric Duncan and Evonne Delegarde (above) pose with members of the Dundas County Archives Committee (front, from left) archivist Susan Robinson Peters, Lorraine Reoch of the St. Lawrence UEL chapter; South Dundas Clerk Brenda Brunt, Committee Chair Larry Empey, and North Dundas representatives Darlene Fawcett, Jo-Anne McCaslin (North Dundas Clerk) and Brianne Scott. Zandbergen photo, Nation Valley News
The media of yesterday — The front page of a 1930s edition of ‘The Williamsburg Times’ — a defunct newspaper — reports on the exploits of Dr. Locke in the village. A replica image of the paper hangs on the wall at the new Dundas County Archives.