Dispatch partners with Columbus Metropolitan Library to bring trove of history to the public

Dean Narciso, Columbus Dispatch
Updated ·2 min read
May 31, 2023; Columbus, OH, USA; Columbus Metropolitan Library staff member Aaron O'Donovan helps move the black-and-white photo archive to the Main Library on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Gannett, the parent company of the Dispatch, is moving the newsroom from 62 E. Broad St. to 605 S. Front St. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch
May 31, 2023; Columbus, OH, USA; Columbus Metropolitan Library staff member Aaron O'Donovan helps move the black-and-white photo archive to the Main Library on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Gannett, the parent company of the Dispatch, is moving the newsroom from 62 E. Broad St. to 605 S. Front St. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch

The Columbus Metropolitan Library will unveil a trove of Columbus history this month, gathered for more than 150 years by Columbus Dispatch journalists.

Library CEO Patrick Losinski and Dispatch Executive Editor Michael Shearer will host a special event at 3 p.m. Wednesday in the Main Library to discuss the new partnership and digital resources that will be free to the public. The event will allow the community to share what types of content are most important to them.

The library's local history & genealogy department has been archiving the 152-year-old newspaper's collection of newspaper clippings, newsroom artifacts, microfilm and microfiche, digital images, photo prints and negatives for several years. More than 6,000 already-scanned images will initially be available. The collection is the largest donation of archival material in the history of the 23-branch library system.

This physical archive alone comprises about 750 boxes, the bulk of them photographs, that the library took ownership of in June.

The Graf Zeppelin flies over The Dispatch building Oct. 24, 1933, on its way from Miami to the Chicago World's Fair. Dispatch operations moved to 34 S. Third St. in 1925.
The Graf Zeppelin flies over The Dispatch building Oct. 24, 1933, on its way from Miami to the Chicago World's Fair. Dispatch operations moved to 34 S. Third St. in 1925.

"The earlier stuff, for me, is the most valuable," said Angela O'Neal, manager of the history and genealogy department. "If this doesn't get saved by us, it won't be available for future generations, to help people have a sense of place and understand how they got here as a community."

The growing database will be accessible through the library's My History collection. Online searchers should look under “Browse by Collection” and then select “Columbus Dispatch Collection.”

In 2018, the library paid NewsBank Media Services $932,970 for lifetime digital archive rights to content from 1871 to 1985. This offered cardholders free access to:

  • A keyword-searchable archive of full-page scans of central Ohio’s daily newspaper from its 1871 launch through 1985.

  • A keyword-searchable, HTML-only archive of the newspaper’s editions from 1985 to the present day.

Columbus Dispatch Digital can be accessed at columbuslibrary.org/research-tools.

In 2020, The Dispatch donated its physical newspaper archive to the library. Bound print editions dating from 1871-2010 became available to browse upon request at the library's Main Library downtown.

The library continues to maintain its physical collection of Dispatch microfilm, which also spans the entire history of the publication, at its Main Library downtown.

dnarciso@dispatch.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Dispatch shares 152 years of photos, stories with library