DRIVE STARTED TO PRESERVE OLD NEWSPAPERS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 2, 1992                   TAG: 9112310332
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-6   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: ZINIE CHEN
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
DRIVE STARTED TO PRESERVE OLD NEWSPAPERS
Already full of museums, battlefields and monuments, Virginia is trying to preserve history in yet another way - beginning with a huge newspaper drive.
The Virginia State Library and Archives, the Virginia Historical Society, the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary are working together to preserve newspapers published in the Old Dominion since the 17th century.
"People have been thinking about this for a long time. Anyone engaged in historical or genealogical research in Virginia is aware how newspapers are invaluable," said John Kneebone, an editor and historian in the publications division at the State Library.
"Newpapers provide us with evidence of public opinion, information about politics and government and . . . people who lived at the time," he said.
Virginia has a wealth of history that should be preserved, said William Chamberlain, chairman of the project's advisory board and a director at the State Library.
Some of the earliest newspapers were the most significant ones, he said.
"The Virginia Gazette started in the 1600s in Williamsburg, went through the Revolutionary War . . . and it's still going," said Chamberlain, noting that Civil War-era newspapers are another vital source of information.
Different newspapers give varying editorial slants on the same events, he pointed out. And so they give readers diverse views on history - adding much to the history textbooks being used in classrooms today.
Chamberlain said he relishes the project, which he expects will take about five or six years. "I'm a history buff. It just got me interested and I just went from there."
Eleanor Andrews, bookkeeper at the National Genealogical Society in Arlington, said the project will make it easier for people to "find out where the blank spots are" in their family lines.
Andrews learned about a weekly Southwest Virginia newspaper that was able to tell her more about the death of her great-grandfather, William Liddle, after the Civil War. The newspaper was preserved on microfilm and stored at Duke University.
"I called Duke . . . and they sent me a photocopy about the mine accident that my great-grandfather was in," she said. "It confirmed my information."
Andrews said putting old newspapers on microfilm could be particularly helpful to genealogists because there were no formal birth and death registrations in Virginia before 1853.
Kneebone said the project began this fall in with a survey form, press releases and posters sent to historical societies, librarians and newspaper offices across Virginia "trying to find every newspaper out there."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB