Viewing search results for "Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library"
View All Posts
Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library in Edenton has funded digitization of an additional 12 years of the Chowan Herald. This new content means that you can now search the entire run from the first issue in 1934 through December 2014.
The new issues cover 2003-2014. The Herald is published in Edenton, one of North Carolina’s oldest historic cities. There are articles that describe moving the 1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse and the renovation and re-opening of the historic Chowan County Courthouse which was originally built in 1767. There’s also an article declaring a home on East Queen Street to be the oldest in the state after dating the wood timbers to 1718.
This area in particular felt the push and pull of development opportunities during this time. The paper covers pushback by residents as retailers like Wal-mart and Lowe’s scope out sites for stores. Many issues cover the potential development of an outlying landing field or OLF by the Navy, which drew criticism for its potential impact on the Pocosin Lake Wildlife Refuge. In the end the Navy withdrew plans for an OLF in North Carolina.
You can search and browse the entire run of The Chowan Herald on its landing page. Other materials related to Chowan County that are available on our site, including newspapers, city directories, and more, can be searched and browsed on the county landing page.
Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library in Edenton has funded digitization of an additional 19 years of the Chowan Herald. This new content means that you can now search the entire run from the first issue in 1934 through June 2001.
The new issues from 1983-2001 cover local political and town government news, tourism, business and residential development in the area, local events and community organizations, crime and local disasters. One of the larger construction projects represented in this timespan is the replacement Albemarle Sound Bridge. You can see news about the conception, construction, and dedication of the bridge (including an article on the partial collapse during construction which delayed its completion). (Here’s an article about the original bridge, which you can read about through earlier issues of the Herald.)
You can search and browse the entire run of The Chowan Herald on its landing page. Other materials related to Chowan County that are available on our site, including newspapers, city directories, and more, can be searched and browsed on the county landing page.
Staff at Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library (L-R) Destinee Williams, Claudia Resta, Brandy Goodwin, Larry the Mascot, and Jennifer Finlay
This year marks the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate we’ll be posting 10 stories from 10 stakeholders about how NCDHC has impacted their organizations.
Today’s 10 for 10 Q&A is from Jennifer Finlay, Chowan County Librarian at Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library. (Library’s home page | NCDHC contributor page) We’ve worked with the Library to digitize issues of The Chowan Herald out of Edenton, NC. We were happy to work with them in a successful trial project to accept additional funds from partner organizations for newspaper digitization, too. Read below for more about our partnership with the Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library.
What impact has NCDHC had on your institution and/or on a particular audience that means a lot to you?
We had the good fortune of being chosen to have part of our local newspaper, The Chowan Herald, digitized by NCDHC in 2018. I then proposed an innovative approach to digitizing more years of the paper by having our local historic preservation grantors help fund more years. NCDHC had not done this in the past and the Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library was part of a pilot program. This helps small, rural and lightly funded libraries to be able to do digitization without having to learn all the technical aspects of digitization and hosting the results.
Do you have a specific user story (maybe your own!) about how DigitalNC has boosted research or improved access to important information?
This saves us so much time when we get the phone calls from out of state asking about a Chowan Herald article. We no longer have make time to go upstairs, fire up the microfilm machine, try and find an article with limited reference information and no index. We can either look for it ourselves while on the phone or give the link to the caller and they can have fun reliving the past.
If you were asked to “describe what makes NCDHC great” in a few words, what would they be?
NCDHC as a website is so much more user friendly than the state archives. (Sorry state archives). I love that Lisa Gregory and the decision makers of DigitalNC took a chance on us and tried something new.
Just over 130 new issues of The Chowan Herald are online and ready to view. The issues span the early 1980s, from 1981 to mid-1983. These additions to our digital newspaper collection are made available thanks to our partners at Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library.
Serving Chowan County, North Carolina from the city of Edenton, The Chowan Herald focused on local news happenings along their side of the Abermarle Sound. Local politics frequently made front page news, especially during the local elections to county board offices.
At other times, The Chowan Herald focused on their community members, as evidenced by DeMint Frazier Walker’s obituary. A prominent community figure and principal of the eponymous high school for thirty one years, Walker’s accomplishments were detailed in the front page article located to the right.
To view all issues of The Chowan Herald, starting with our earliest issue from 1934, click here. To learn more about Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library, you can visit their homepage here.
Twenty years worth of The Chowan Herald has recently been transferred to a digital format from a microfilm one, and these issues are now available on DigitalNC. These new additions cover Edenton’s news from 1934 until 1956 and cover all manner of Chowan County news. This paper is made available thanks to our new partner Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library.
Among other things, the paper frequently shares images of local homes and businesses, though the digitized microfilm is sometimes difficult to make out:
The paper also often includes a comic strip, “Facts You Never Knew!!!”:
To see more news from Edenton, and to learn more about The Chowan Herald, click here.
Back in August, we announced our annual call for microfilmed newspaper digitization. We asked institutions throughout North Carolina to nominate papers they’d like to see added to DigitalNC. As it is every year, it was an incredibly tough choice – we are typically able to choose between 40-60 reels out of hundreds or thousands nominated. This year we’ve chosen the following titles and years.
| Title |
Years |
Nominating Institution |
| Carolinian (Raleigh) |
1945-1959 |
Olivia Raney Local History Library |
| Chatham Record (Pittsboro) |
1923-1930 |
Chatham County Libraries |
| Chowan Herald (Edenton) |
1934-1956 |
Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library |
| Concord Times |
1923-1927 |
Cabarrus County Public Library |
| Goldsboro News |
1922-1927 |
Wayne County Public Library |
| Yancey Record / Journal |
1936-1977 |
AMY Regional Library System |
For our selection criteria, we prioritize newspapers that document underrepresented communities, new titles, papers that come from a county that currently has little representation on DigitalNC, and papers nominated by new partners. After selection, we ask the partners to secure permission for digitization and, if that’s successful, they make it into the final list above.
We hope to have these titles coming online in mid-2019. If your title didn’t make it this year don’t despair! We welcome repeat submissions, and plan on sending out another call in Fall 2019.
