State Historical Society completes South Dakota newspaper cataloging project

PIERRE – Copies of South Dakota Newspapers on Microfilm, 1859-2001 were recently mailed to libraries statewide by the South Dakota State Historical Society. 

The publication represents the culmination of seven years of work by State Historical Society staff on the South Dakota Newspaper Project (SDNP) to catalog all microfilmed newspaper holdings in its State Archives. 

The completed catalog records are now available on the Internet through the South Dakota Library Network (SDLN) at: http://webpals.sdln.net/webpals/. Catalog and holdings records are also available through OCLC’s Online Union Catalog. Researchers worldwide will now have access to information about South Dakota newspapers available through interlibrary loan. 

Information found in the catalog records includes the title of the newspaper, the publisher, the city and county of publication, and the beginning and ending dates of the newspaper. The SDNP is also working to provide access to a complete listing of all newspaper holdings by title and date via a Web search engine. This product will be available in 2003 at www.sdhistory.org.

The SDNP is part of the U.S. Newspaper Program, a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded effort to preserve and provide access to newspapers in all 50 states, published from Colonial times to the present. The project is managed by staff of the State Archives, a program of the State Historical Society within the Department of Education and Cultural Affairs at the Cultural Heritage Center.

If you have old newspapers, or know someone who does, please contact LaVera Rose at: South Dakota State Historical Society, 900 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD 57501-2217; telephone, (605) 773-3780; or e-mail LaVera.Rose@state.sd.us.

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