The Official Opening of the Bill Silver Digital Newspaper Archive will took place on Saturday March 21, 2009 at 1:00 pm at the Vanderhoof Public Library. It was a great success! We now welcome the world to search the archive.

Search the Bill Silver Digital Newspaper Archive Here

Bill Silver

This project has been named in recognition of the late Bill Silver who was a long time resident of Vanderhoof and an avid historian. Mr. Silver had a keen interest in the development of this area, which inspired him to collect issues of the weekly newspaper. This collection became an invaluable resource for the community.

Bill and his wife Edith allowed interested parties access to the collection in their home. In later years, the papers also became the basis of a weekly column in the Omineca Express entitled " A Look at the Past" by Bill Silver. Following Bill's death, Edith continued to share the papers until she passed away in 2003. Now that the collection has been preserved, the Silver's work will be appreciated for generations to come.

Background

The creation of the Bill Silver Digital Newspaper Archive has been undertaken in partnership with the Nechako Valley Historical Society. The goal of this project is to digitize the weekly newspaper Nechako Chronicle, and to make it available worldwide in a searchable online database. The digitized issues will range from 1930 - 1983. They will be housed on the library's own server and made available to the public via the Internet. The digitization and publication of this material will be of great benefit to local historians, teachers, genealogists and students from elementary school through to university. The ability to search by keyword will open the door to volumes of historical information

The Future

The ultimate goal of the library is to digitize and provide access to all local newspapers available, from the late 1920's and continuing to the present time. To this end, we have purchased archived microfilm which we hope to digitize and add to the collection over the next two years. We will continue to update this page as more information on our progress becomes available.

The Vanderhoof Public Library would like to thank the following donors for making this digital collection a reality:

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

Vanderhoof Co-op Association

Friends of the Library

The Bill Silver Family

Nechako Valley Historical Society

Black Press

Rosemary Boyd