woodhull sentinel digitization and preservation project

Following the discovery of several hundred newspapers from the 1930’s from the Town of Woodhull New York, a plan was developed to digitize and preserve the content. In April 2025, the Town of Woodhull reviewed the project proposal and agreed to fund it. The project will begin Summer 2025 with the vendor Backstage Library Works, with a goal of completion by the end of 2025.

Download Project Proposal (PDF).

July 24, 2025 Update

On July 24, 2025, Leslie and Adam Smith delivered 394 newspaper issues to Backstage Library Works in Bethlehem PA for digitization and archival storage, and our project manager gave us a tour of the facility that included their content storage area as well as employees actively photographing and reviewing digital files for other newspaper digitization projects in progress.

Our project manager said that they would likely do an initial assessment of the collection in August and that they expect the digitization to be completed by the end of the year. She also offered to give us a few initial digitized images once work begins so we can review their work early in the process.

When the work is complete, Leslie and Adam will retrieve both the original print materials and the digital files to return them to the Town of Woodhull, and Adam will re-inventory the physical materials and begin our own quality control checks and packaging of the digital files for distribution in the first quarter 2026.

Leslie and Adam also discussed options for making the files available on a Town of Woodhull website, and these discussions will continue.

Since the original project proposal, Leslie discovered 22 more newspaper issues that have been included in the collection, and we have asked Backstage to give us an updated cost estimate after their August review. (Increased costs include not only additional digitization effort, but possibly more archival storage boxes.)

Additionally, we discovered one issue was printed with an incorrect date, and there are a total of 10 issues that are duplicated, that we intentionally included in case the paired issues can clarify each other. I have alerted both Backstage and New York State Historic Newspapers to these points.

Download final inventory report (PDF).

August 25, 2025 Update

Overview of current status:

• Backstage has completed an initial material review
• Backstage confirmed project specifications and budget with us
• Backstage has added the project to their production schedule
• Backstage will let us know when the project begins and confirm the timeline then.

Material Review, Updated Budget and Timeline

Caitlin, our project representative at Backstage Library Works, has completed an initial review of the newspapers we gave them and she confirmed that “the material appears as it was described in the price quote – loose newspapers issues in a fragile and brittle state.”

Between the time when we signed the contract with Backstage and the time when we delivered the materials, Leslie had discovered 22 additional newspaper editions that we included in the final delivery to Backstage. As a result, there was a slight increase from the estimate quoted in our contract with them:

A $176.32 increase from the estimate in the contract.

The increased number of pages will also slightly increase the cost to import them into the New York State Historic Newspapers service, so our overall project budget is now:

Caitlin has entered the project into their production schedule with a late Summer/early Fall start time. She will let us know when they start. She expects the project to take 4-6 weeks to complete, putting us on track to complete the digitization by the end of 2025, but once the project begins, she will confirm the timeline and projected completion date.

For those interested, Caitlin gave the following description of the process, and afterward, I will summarize what will happen after digitization is completed.

Material Preparation and Rehousing

Before the materials go on camera, a technician will examine each newspaper issue to identify any issues and perform light mending to ensure that the pages are safe to handle. Here is what the process includes:

• The technician will carefully unfold the newspapers
• If there are any deep creases from the folds or folded corners, they will iron the pages to flatten them as best as possible.
• When the pages cool down, they will use archival quality filmoplast tape to mend tears. They will do their best to apply the filmoplast to areas without text or content.
• Please see the link to the filmoplast tape that we use.
• Although I did not come across any, if we find staples or paperclips, they will carefully be removed from the pages and replaced with plastic archival sheets.

While we’ll take great care during prep, some pages—particularly those with frayed edges or deep creases—may still be at risk of damage. If we come across anything that might result in significant content loss, we’ll place the item on hold and reach out to you before proceeding.

During mending we will rehouse the newspapers into flat Hollinger boxes and place interleaving tissue paper between each issue:

• Rehouse with flat Hollinger boxesa

• Interleaving tissue paper

The mended newspapers will be placed in the boxes and will not be refolded. We will fill each box to its capacity. If there any empty areas, we will add rolled bubble wrap packing to prevent the pages from shifting within the box. Once the newspapers are placed in the box, we will print out a label to place outside of the box, listing the box number, titles of the newspapers, and the date range found in the box.

Digitization and Imaging Specifications

Once the materials are prepped and rehoused, we will begin capturing them. We will follow the NYS technical requirements for the files, which includes capturing each page at 400ppi, 24-bit color using an overhead area array camera and glass to flatten the pages. The entirety of each newspaper will be captured, and the pages will be captured two-pages at a time and split to one-page per image after capture. We will then convert the images to 8-bit grayscale and create the derivative files from those images.

File Naming

After capture, the digital files will be inspected by one of our quality assurance specialists for quality and accuracy. We will also collect the metadata to rename the files with. We will collect the newspaper title and the year, month, and day from the masthead of each issue. A sequential image counter will be applied to the end of the file names which will restart with each new issue. The files will look something like this once renamed: steuben-republican-18951219-001.tif, steuben-republican-18951219-002.tif, steuben-republican-18951219-003.tif, and so on.

Derivatives and File Delivery

Once the images pass inspection and are renamed, we will create derivative files from the TIFF images. We will create single-page PDFs, one of each image, and JPEG images, one for each image. We will transfer the TIFF, PDFs, and JPEGs to a hard drive for you to keep and ship the hard drive to you.

After Digitization

Adam and Leslie will return to Backstage Library works to retrieve the newspapers in archival storage boxes as well as a hard drive with the digitized files.

After returning to Woodhull, Adam will reinventory and inspect the physical papers and Leslie will then move them to their permanent storage location.

Adam will do quality control checks on the digital files and package them for distribution.

If Adam or Leslie discover any issues, they will promptly report them, otherwise, once Adam has finished post-processing and packaging the digital files, he will proceed with distributing the files to the targets identified in the project proposal and report back to the Woodhull Town Board. In particular, Adam will verify that the files are imported properly and displaying properly on the NYS Historic Newspapers site, and report back.