With The Detroit News moving from the building that has been its headquarters for nearly 100 years, the paper's archives are going to be open to the public for the first time, Susan Whitall reports.
Much of the archival material will be available for research, because the bulk of it is going to the state Archives of Michigan, and is being digitized and preserved for our access, and the future, she writes.
One of the most interesting tools for genealogists and historians will be two million typed index cards.
The cards were typed by Detroit News librarians and index Detroit News stories from the early 1900s to 2000 (with some going back to the 19th century). For example, you could look up Abe Bernstein of the Purple Gang and find a card with his name on it with the title, date and page number of every story that appeared in the newspaper about him, from his first troubles with the law, to his death. You can then go to the microfilm and know exactly the month, day and page number for any story you need.
The Detroit News "clip file" — known as the "morgue" in old newspaper movies — is also going to the state archives and will be available for research in Lansing. The clip file, kept in filing cabinets weighing 250 pounds each, was vital for reporters in the pre-Internet era, to look up stories on specific topics.
The University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library will house 771 scrapbooks that were dubbed the "scrapatorium" by News librarians. The scrapatorium consists of articles cut and pasted into books by news subject (UAW, Detroit riots, etc.).
