Preserving, digitizing, and sustaining The Weekly Challenger, a local African-American newspaper.

Catherine A. Cardwell, Alexandra Curran

Research output: Contribution to conferencePresentation

Abstract

A local newspaper in Saint Petersburg, Florida, The Weekly Challenger was established in 1967 with the goal of documenting and sharing information about the African-American community at a time when other local news outlets largely ignored it. Through a special legislative appropriation from the State of Florida, the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library at the University of South Florida Saint Petersburg received funding to preserve, digitize, and sustain the newspaper. In this article, the authors discuss the steps taken to build the repository for the newspaper’s print and electronic archives , including photographs and videotaped interviews with a long-time publisher. NPML has made the archives freely available to the public; however, current issues published electronically will be embargoed for six months. The archive preserves Saint Petersburg’s cultural heritage, allowing scholars and students to have a deeper understanding of the historical context of African-Americans in central Florida as well as their contributions to and struggles with the city in which they live.

Original languageAmerican English
StatePublished - Jan 1 2018

Keywords

  • Digitization, Preservation, Sustainability, Cultural heritage, Newspapers

Disciplines

  • Archival Science
  • Civic and Community Engagement
  • Library and Information Science

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