On June 26, 2020, Tammy and Bob Beamer, Co-owners of The Herald Record donated to the Doddridge County Historical Society fifty books filled with historic newspapers, that were found after purchasing The Herald Record.
Patricia Harris, President of the Doddridge County Historical Society took possession of the books which contain the newspapers from The Salem Herald, The Salem Record, The West Union Herald and The West Union Record, ranging from the dates from around 1934 to the 1970’s.
Knowing the historic value of the records found in these books and that some of these books are not found in any archive, the Beamers felt it was best to take them out of storage and placed with those who could care for them and provide them to the public for viewing.
On this same day, Ms. Harris and Ms. Beamer met with Dennis Mader of Compu-com, Inc. to discuss and receive an estimate on the cost of digitizing the fifty donated books and 30 others like them that are in the possession of the Historical Society. Compu-com being the company that has provided the scanning service to the Doddridge County Commission to scan the records in the Doddridge County Clerk’s office.
The meeting with Mr. Mader went very well, estimating the cost of scanning the books at around $16,000 (or $200.00 each) which will include the OCR option to allow word recognition when searching the papers.
The Historical Society is currently confirming with the Doddridge County Library and the WV Archives the identification of the books of Newspapers that have been previously micro filmed and scanned are not part of the 80+ books counted to be scanned and if the previously scanned books are OCR compatible.
Upon the completion of this project, the Historic Society plans donate the digital copies of the scanned books to the Doddridge County Library and to the WV Archives as well as keeping a copy in their own offices for those who need access.
On July 1st, the Historic Society will begin taking donations for the newspaper scanning at: C/o Patricia Harris, 1100 Doe Run Rd., West Union WV 26456 or on Go Fund Me.
Presentation of Historic Newspaper Books
