This long story from IowaWatch and shorter one from the Gazette are disheartening for me as a researcher. Newspapers from across the state have not been microfilmed since 2009 and continued to be stored. The Legislature was going to devote money to filling the backlog, but the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs refused, IowaWatch says, “citing pending completion of a master planning process.”
This doesn’t make sense. Developing a future plan is something that should be done, but not at the expense of current practices. Microfilm, right now, is the best archival medium given the restrictions on making things digitally available. Websites disappear all the time, and copyright law isn’t going to be changed for something like this.
The reduction of research hours in Des Moines and Iowa City (and of staff in Iowa City) doesn’t bode well either. The Iowa City site offers closer access for major cities in eastern Iowa. Expansion of scanned resources — which I have used and love — is great, but I also have used microfilm extensively in my work.
I understand the need to be responsive to future needs — or future attempts at relevance — but preservation of already existing resources while a master plan is developed should be a priority.
(For what it’s worth, I wrote this before a Des Moines Sunday Register editorial covered some of the same ground.)