Enjoy History as it Happened

Let’s Digitize the Antigo Daily Journal and Preserve Langlade County History Together

The Antigo Public Library has embarked on an exciting new project to digitize local historical records, including over 120 years of news of local newspaper archives, and make them accessible to historians, researchers and everyone interested in understanding and preserving the unique history of our community.

This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity won’t come cheaply, but it perfectly aligns with the library’s intended purpose of making educational and informative materials accessible to all members of our community. We confidently hope to raise $100,000 through 2025 to make this project a reality.

The Problem…

The Antigo Public Library gets many requests for obituaries and other historical records that can only be accessed by utilizing the microfiche machines that contain over 120 years of local newspaper records, contained on over 500 rolls of film. With the bound print volumes of the Antigo Daily Journal archives unavailable to the public currently, we are the only public repository of this material. Unfortunately, these machines are no longer compatible with printers to allow those unable to visit the library in-person to access these records.

So unless a researcher can physically visit the library and scroll through the microfiche, the records are essentially unavailable, and the history record, recorded as it happened, is lost.

There is a solution!

There is a solution, but it is not inexpensive: Digitize the historical records of the Antigo Daily Journal, The Antigo Republican, Weekly News Item and U.S. Census and make them available in a searchable database via computer.

The library has received a quote from Advantage Archives, the company the Antigo Public Library pays each year to scan the Antigo Daily Journal onto microfiche, to go back through the decades of those rolls of film and convert them to a digital format.

The result will be a searchable database, invaluable to researchers and casual peruser of historical records. Imagine reading the news and advertisements present within years of the community’s founding, through the years of Prohibition, the Great Depression, into the Great Society, Moon landing, Watergate, and 9-11. Relive the weddings, births, anniversaries and passing of generations as they occurred. The Antigo Daily Journal’s continuing weekly “Peeps at Our Past” column remains the post popular feature in the now-weekly publication. This project brings those records to life. It is an amazing opportunity.

To Donate Towards the Digitization Process…

To donate towards the digitization project mail a check made out to the Antigo Public Library Foundation with a note stating it is for the digitization project.

Checks can be mailed to the Foundation at 617 Clermont St., Antigo, WI 54409.

Raised: $30,000

of $105,000 Goal

Donate Today!!!

Technical Details

Microfiche is a flat piece of film containing micro photos of pages of newspaper, articles, or other paper records. Microfilm is a continuous roll of film with the flat micro photos that can be played through a spool using a microfiche and microfilm reader. The Antigo Public Library has approximately 500 rolls of microfilm containing The Antigo Daily Journal, The Antigo Weekly Journal, The Antigo Republican, and U.S. Census records for the county going back to the 1800s.

The digitization process takes two steps. The first (1) involves scanning the film rolls into digital files. The second (2) involves creating a searchable database to house the digital records. The database would be accessible to everyone via the Antigo Public Library website, allowing researchers near and far to search the records for obituaries, birth announcements, and other local news from their own homes. It will also allow for the printing of these records from home or utilizing a library computer for residents.

The initial $30,000 donation is coming from the Antigo Public Library, via a donation made in 2013 from the Fogeltanz. The Antigo Public Library has managed those funds since 2013 in agreement with the Antigo Public Library Board.

Complete details of the Advantage Archives proposal follow:

The Antigo Public Library microfiche readers and rolls of scanned film currently held within the library.

Upon completion of the digitization process, one machine will be sold with the funds going towards the Antigo Public Library’s ongoing cost of digitizing future years of the paper. The second machine will be donated to the Langlade County Historical Museum along with the scanned film for preservation.