Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 11/24/2021
LUDLOW – With the town’s 250th anniversary looming, the Hubbard Memorial Library is working to preserve a collection of images, documents and microfilm dating as far back as 1774 digitally to preserve the town’s history.
Library Director Patrick McGowan said his goal is to preserve Ludlow’s history and give the public the opportunity to access it for free.
“We are in the process of creating an inventory and digitizing our local history collections and making sure everything is properly stored and then making it accessible to the public,” he said. “We want to preserve it and take the photographs and microfilm collection and digitize it, which makes it accessible to everyone.”
Linda Collette, the chairman of the Hubbard Memorial Library Board of Trustees, said the library stores a variety of materials highlighting the town’s history including glass plate negatives, which are images preserved on glass.
“Here at the library, we want to get people excited about it and knowledgeable about our towns history and know that we carry it here and store it here. We have original glass plate negatives, and we will be acquiring about 400 more from the Ludlow Mills,” she said.
Inside the library there are collections of the materials tucked away safely to prevent damage while McGowan works through digitizing the materials with his team.
“We have at least four boxes of stuff that we need to inventory, and we are in the process of doing that right now, the priority for us was to work on the glass plate negatives because of their delicate nature,” he said. “At some point everything will be converted and stored properly.”
Collette said some of the materials are susceptible to damage, so the library is working hard to quickly document everything.
“A lot of these old images, pictures and newspapers is high acid content so we are trying to preserve this as best we can, we feel it is our duty to do this for the future,” she said.
McGowan said the context is just as important as the images themselves.
“Not only do we want to preserve the images, but we want to preserve the context and all the meta data, what is about and the people that we were involved,” he said.
Along with the images, McGowan said the library also houses a yearbook collection dating back to the 1920s and a four-reel microfilm collection, which contains town records from 1774 to 1934.
Collette said the library is looking to purchase software to continue its digitization work.
“Pat is in the process of buying some software programs so that we can afford to be able to keep this and get these things from microfilm to digitizing and keeping them in this great place. It will be not only with us here at the library but statewide as well,” she said. “It is very costly to do so, we are talking about upwards of $10,000.”
The next time residents are cleaning out their attic or basement, Collette said to keep any old newspapers, photos or documents related to the towns history and donate it to the library.
“If it has anything to do with our town’s history, we want to see it between our library collection and for the 250th anniversary,” she said. “We do not want it to end up in a landfill and we will take it.”
Collette said she hopes people come check out the collection at the library or online.
“We are trying to encourage people to come to the library and see what we are doing, soon we will be printing some of the images and putting them in frames and posting them around the library where we will change them out periodically,” she said.
Those interested in Ludlow’s history can see the initial collection of images online at https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_field=all_fields&q=ludlow%2C+mass.