Category: Edited by Heather Kohles

In an ever-growing globalized environment, to better serve patrons, archives have been teaming up across borders.  The Arabian Gulf Digital Archives is the result of one such collaboration, between The National Archives of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and United Kingdom.  The Digital Archives is made up of 250,000 items including documents, maps, photographs and video footage, spanning approximately 200 years of history. This collaboration is significant because, historically, the UAE and UK have had a checkered past.  The documents available in the Digital Archives represent “years of intrigue, political strife, war, independence and progress” (Dennehy 2019) between the two nations. What is currently available is the culmination of 2 years of work, however the collaboration is not done.  The Digital Archives plans on expanding the digital collection even further.

References

Dennehy, J. (May 2, 2019) Treasure trove of priceless UAE archives now online. Retrieved from: https://www.thenational.ae/uae/heritage/treasure-trove-of-priceless-uae-archives-now-online-1.856500

Peterson, J.E., Crystal, J. (May 26, 2019) United Arab Emirates. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Arab-Emirates

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Chronicling America: Digitizing the historic papers of our past
Nevada’s journey as part of the Nation’s Newspaper Digitization Project

People at the Center

In every step of our project, we put people at the center of all we do! We know that our papers are used by researchers in order to improve our world.

Our target users are:

• Researchers & Scholars
• Lifelong Learners & Casual Readers
• Genealogists

DESIGN is everything!

The design is guided by our audience. All of the design decisions were made to serve them, to the formats and search design, tools used (such as OCR for full text searching) and of utmost importance: Outreach! Often we go where they are!

The treasure within the pages: our history

Our hope is that people of the state, nation, and world will dig into our papers to fulfill their curiosities, wonders, and all other information needs. We hope that people are delighted, enlightened, educated, surprised, and frightened at the contents within these pages.

The past can teach you a lot about the core of human nature and being a citizen of this world. It is fascinating to see how people lived their day-to-day lives.

Newspapers are often the first draft of history.

In the West, especially in Nevada, the Manifest Destiny and Gold Rush brought many new people to this land. The Natives (our Indigenous Peoples) were already here. Seeing the struggle for lifestyle and survival on both sides is very interesting, and often, heartbreaking.

Regularly there had to be a lot of cooperation with one another. Everyone came from different countries, cultures, and ethnicities and all had to live side-by-side. So more than not, people were respectful for the greater good. 

Some other observations?

Prohibition fueled what I like to call ‘PCP whiskey’ [moonshine] as this liquor unregulated it was really quite dangerous. A lighter note on prohibition, one article describes Reno as having more open saloons after prohibition than before!

Women wore long dresses consisting of many layers covering head, neck, arms, and always legs. They also had no rights and fought tirelessly for suffrage!

Jails were make-shift; prisoners broke out a lot! (I get the notion they were not stripped of belongings before being booked either; they often started fires or attacked others with weapons or other items!)

People lost so much from fires then – property damage and lives! Many times the residents put out the fires by forming lines and passing buckets toward the fire.

Mining was (and still is) very dangerous. Many perished working in the mines.

There were many murders but not many forensics science and murder investigations. Sometimes people were identified as “a stranger found dead…” and life appeared to move on.

There were a number of suicides. Life was not easy. Sometimes the suicides were gruesome and brutal (firearms were not always available!)

Entertainment included masquerade balls, traveling circuses, local theatre, and stories in the paper.

People suffered from the ravages of diseases that are preventable today—diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox, meningitis… Often young children succumbed to diseases we prevent today!

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To learn more about Nevada Digital Newspaper Project, please visit our website

To search your state paper, or just to browse, visit Chronicling America

View a slideshow of some of the more interesting articles, advertisements and images we have come across

Quick stats from ChronAm!

28 titles from Nevada;

Nevada’s oldest title is from 1863;

205,653 pages available;

Papers from all of our 16 counties of Nevada!

Between April 5th and July 17, 2019, the National Archives of Canada will be providing funding and digitizing services to eligible indigenous organizations as part of their Listen, Hear our Voices initiative.  The goal of the initiative is to help preserve indigenous cultures and language.  In addition to the digitization, the National Archives will be providing training to help the participating organizations build the necessary skills to take the tenants of the initiative back to their communities.  A committee made up of representatives from First Nation, Inuit and Metis Nation will review applications and make recommendations. The Listen initiative is part of the Indigenous Documentary Heritage Initiative, which is a portion of a greater 5-year Indigenous Heritage Action Plan created by the Canadian government and the Library and Archives of Canada.  

Reference

Library and Archives of Canada (April 5, 2019) Library and Archives Canada launches funding and services to help preserve Indigenous culture and language recordings.  Retrieved from: https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives/news/2019/04/library-and-archives-canada-launches-funding-and-services-to-help-preserve-indigenous-culture-and-language-recordings.html.