Upgraded Website and Historical Archiving Project at the Scarsdale Library

The Scarsdale Public Library has a new and improved website at Scarsdalelibrary.org. The site has been redesigned to make navigation quicker and user-friendly. The new site provides easier access to lists of new titles, programs and online services, such as databases and e-books. Information regarding the library's hours, access to the online catalog and library account information is more easily accessible.

The Scarsdale Library has been working to ramp up the repertoire of community programs so another focus of the upgrade is the addition of an enhanced calendar that can be sorted by type of event (i.e. kids, adults, Friends of the Library, etc.), with links to additional information.

"We understand the importance of keeping our website up to date," said Elizabeth Bermel, director of the Scarsdale Library. "So many of our patrons rely on looking up information on the go, and we hope that our new and improved website will keep our community members connected and in touch with all of us here at the library."

Preservation: The library has also joined forces with Scarsdale Historical Society to digitize back issues of The Scarsdale Inquirer. The project was kicked off with a $25,000 funding grant from the Scarsdale Historical Society in April 2011. Hudson Microimaging was selected to perform this digitization project and the grant will fund the digitization of the newspaper from 1901 to 1936. Only 18 months after the project began, significant progress has been made, with the years 1901-1928 already digitized and work on the year 1929 is nearing completion. To date, an estimated 10,000 pages have been digitized.

Digitized material can be accessed any time at news.hrvh.org, an online destination housing historical newspapers as part of the Hudson River Valley Heritage (HRVH) service. HRVH is coordinated and managed by the non-profit Southeastern New York Library Resources Council (SNYLRC). The vision of HRVH is to provide access to digitized copies of historical newspapers from the Hudson River Valley region of New York State. Each newspaper will have its own page with information about the publication, including the date range that is available online and information about the history of the newspaper.

In the past, the back issues of the Scarsdale Inquirer, which contain information not available anywhere else, have been made accessible at the library in both print and microfilm. However, many of the back issues are in fragile condition and need to be digitized. Many of these issues are the only known copies in existence and this project ensures they will be preserved for future generations. "Our older copies of the Inquirer are deteriorating, as are our older microfilm copies," said Elizabeth Bermel, director of the Scarsdale Library. "With this grant, we can make these important original source materials more readily available to members of the community in searchable format. In the future, we hope to expand the program and cover more issues of the Inquirer since it is such a valuable resource to our community."