During the Michigan Press Association's winter conference in Grand Rapids, I had the opportunity to speak with Frank Boles, director of Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant. Mr. Boles was on hand to display the libraries new feature: Celebrating Two Centuries of Michigan Newspapers. As a graduate of the journalism program at CMU (1995), I was pleased to learn my alma mater was recording the history of a business that is so vital to our countries history. In many ways, as Mr. Boles told me, newspapers are the first draft of our history. They tell is what is happening now. Books and other media tell us more in depth about our history much later.... The photo is courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library, displaying some of Michigan's rich history of large and small newspapers that continues today.
According to a press release by Mr. Boles, the library display is focused on:
*The importance of newspaper as information resources
*The longevity of newspapers as a means of communication
* The importance of preserving newspapers as historical resources
13 comments:
Hi. I would like to post a link to the Michigan newspaper exhibit at Clarke Historical Library at www.businesshistory.com - the Internet's largest site devoted to business and management history.
The link would appear in the links section at:
http://www.businesshistory.com/ind._publishing.php.
Do you know if the Library will create a link when the exhibit begins on 2/16?
Thanks for an interesting article.
Best Regards,
Kip Altman
I have no idea what the library will do regarding this. I am not connected with the library or the exhibit. I simply was lucky enough to speak with director of the library and see some of what will be in the exhibit during a conference.
Best of luck.
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This exhibit sounds very interesting and would be something I would see if I happened to be in the area. Unfortunately I don't travel much and won't be able. However, the exhibit should offer a vast amount of interesting pieces, stories, and information about Michigan's newspapers to those who are able to attend.
Brian,
I'm not trying to get anyone to go. I'm trying to get you to think about newspapers. What do you think about this part: In many ways, as Mr. Boles told me, newspapers are the first draft of our history. They tell is what is happening now. Books and other media tell us more in depth about our history much later...
I agree, I think newspapers are the original draft of our history. If you think about it when events happen they usually show up in newspapers the following day. The internet does this is well but after time this information is not too easily accessible. Holding on to newspapers can help us to learn about our history as time progresses...
i understand that newspapers have been, still are, and will continue to be important sources of news media. i also understand that the popularity of newspapers is falling by the wayside, but by no means dying out. people said radio was going to kick the bucket when television entered the scene. i believe that newspapers have a long life ahead of them.
as for the exhibit, i can't imagine it would be very exhilirating. i don't know how an exhibit devoted to newspapers could be anything more than slightly exciting. hopefully i'll be pleasantly surprised.
everything today is being archived. i believe it is nessasary to keep old newspapers on record...however if in the future we dont have actual hard copies and everything is now a digital copy it would still be wise to archive it.
What do you all think about these three points of emphasis?
*The importance of newspaper as information resources
*The longevity of newspapers as a means of communication
* The importance of preserving newspapers as historical resources
I think it would be interesting to see how journalism has changed in the last 'few' years. I bet actually though that the format to today's paper is not all that different. I mean what makes up a paper anyway? Local news, national, and advertisements. Is it really all that opposite of what we have which makes up the content of most U.S. national and local papers? Still though preserving history is always a good idea.
"newspapers are the first draft of our history. They tell is what is happening now. Books and other media tell us more in depth about our history much later"
This is true, and very interesting. Newspapers are often created with very little in depth coverage into a story because they're published with an intent to inform the reader with as much information as possible at that moment in time. Proceeding issues of the newspaper will expand upon the story but they may not cover everything from the previous issue. Books are great because they provide the reader with an entire analysis of the story, but they do come later. If you go back and examine a story in a newspaper through consecutive issues you're able to understand the effect this story had on the public and how story unfolded. With books however, you're really only getting the facts.
By the sounds of it, it is certainly something that should be celebrated, having said that newspapers are essentially the first copies of our history before books, and I wholeheartedly agree. Books may have the specifics, but the newspapers is what brings about the news as history, and this is something we shouldn't overlook.
I feel that just because newspapers are an ld form of media doesn't mean that they shouldn't be celebrated. They were one of the only ways to get news. Its not about the quantity of the news but the quality of the stories and most news papers do have quality stories.
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