Available Online: Carnegie Mellon Libraries Create Digital Archive of Jewish News in Pittsburgh Since 1895
Carnegie Mellon University Libraries have completed the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project, a digital archive documenting daily life in the Pittsburgh Jewish community from 1895 to the present. The full text archive providing an unparalleled look back into more than a century of life in Pittsburgh is fully searchable, free and open to the public at http://ptfs.library.cmu.edu/pjn.
Three weekly newspapers and a weekly newsletter are archived: the “Jewish Criterion” (1895-1962), “The American Jewish Outlook” (1934-1962), “The Jewish Chronicle” (1962-present), and the Y-JCC newsletter series published by the Young Men and Women’s Hebrew Association, the Y-IKC, and the Jewish Community Center (1926-1976).
The successful six-year project was proposed by CMU Trustee Anne Molloy, executive director of the Posner Fine Arts Foundation and librarian at Rodef Shalom Synagogue. Molloy proposed a collaboration to digitize the historic Pittsburgh Jewish publications housed in the Rodef Shalom Library & Archive, the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center and The Jewish Chronicle office files. The collections — in paper and on microfilm — were heavily used and deteriorating.
The Posner Memorial Collection of six hundred twenty-two titles includes landmark titles of the history of western science, beautifully produced books on decorative arts and fine sets of literature.
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Digital Collections, Digital Preservation, Interactive Tools, Journal Articles, Libraries, News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.