Rochester Public Library aims to provide quality materials and services to fulfill educational, informational, cultural, and recreational needs of the entire community. The library received funding to obtain a microfilm scanner that allows for increased accessibility.
Transcript
Opening: This is Minnesota's Legacy: A look at the organizations and people who have benefitted from Minnesota's unique Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.
BRITT AAMODT: The biggest event to ever hit Rochester, Minnesota, was the tornado of 1883. Journalists of the day breathlessly reported the trail of rubble and kindling left in its wake. Today, you won't be able to find a trace of that tornado—but you can read about it at the library. Audio sfx tornado, wind, music
BRIAN LIND: We do have newspapers going back to the late 1800s back when there were a whole bunch of small little newspapers.
BRITT AAMODT: Brian Lind is a reference librarian at the Rochester Public Library. He's the guy to talk to if you want to do a little digging in the microfilm archives.
LIND: So if people aren't familiar with microfilm, it's reels of old school film, and they will have a miniaturized version of every page of every newspaper in there.
AAMODT: Still, the film isn't searchable. You can't just put in a word like "tornado" and have the film scroll to the right page. That's why the library is using their Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage grant to purchase new technology.
LIND: We hope at some point to have it digitized so people can just search for it. And that's part of the reason of getting this newer machine. There is a software that will be able to make optical character reading. Basically, you can scan it.
Closing: Minnesota's Legacy is a production of AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, more at ampers dot org.