By Mary O’KEEFE

From the 1920s to 1978, The Ledger newspaper was the paper of record for the Crescenta Valley. It was a true community paper, its pages a perfect reference for history buffs.

In 2002, the Historical Society of Crescenta Valley (HSCV) discovered that newspapers, like many historical papers, were deteriorating rapidly. A microfilm image was created of each page, the project funded by then-Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s office and Friends of the La Crescenta Library (FOLCL).

“A positive set was provided to the Los Angeles County Library system for viewing with the master negative copy [composed of] 202 reels maintained by the UC Berkeley Newspapers and Microforms Library,” said Elaine Silvestro, president of the Friends of the La Crescenta Library.

But as new technology emerged, microfilm readers became obsolete.

“Parts are difficult or impossible to find, along with the possibility of the reader damaging or scratching the film as it is viewed,” Silvestro added.

The Historical Society reached out again to the FOLCL for help in finding a solution. This ended up being the digitizing of the pages into a portable document format – searchable PDFs.

“Based on the request, the FOLCL will be completely funding this project and has been coordinating with the HSCV, LA County Library headquarters and BMI Imaging (a LA County Library contractor) to receive approval for the LA County Library to host these documents on its website, obtain the microfilm negatives, ensure that these documents are scanned to a specific set of standards and understand the search capabilities associated with old newspapers,” Silvestro said.

The cost of the project is estimated at $21,000.

The FOLCL will complete the project, and then the LA County Library System will host the data on its server.

It is hoped that a ribbon-cutting will be held this winter to celebrate the launch of the new system.

  Mary Okeefe