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Mary F. Shipper Library Re-Launches Online Newspaper Site as West Virginia Newspapers

Nick Gardner, interim program coordinator for the WVU Potomac State College library, demonstrates how easily accessible some local newspapers are now that these have been digitized.

Nick Gardner, interim program coordinator for the WVU Potomac State College library, demonstrates how easily accessible some local newspapers are now that these have been digitized. 

Are you a local history buff?  Tracking down distant relatives?  Or just remembering the good old days?  The West Virginia University Potomac State College Mary F. Shipper Library has digitized several local newspapers and posted them online.  You can get to them through the library’s homepage at psc.lib.wvu.edu.  Click the button for “West Virginia Newspapers.”  The website is free to use and features fully searchable copies of the Mineral Daily News Tribune all the way back to 1911.  You will also find Potomac State’s own newspaper, The Pasquino, from 1921 to 2014.  And thanks to generous donors like PSC Alumnus Carl Dennison “Denny” Avers, this online collection has been expanded to include every preserved issue of The Elk Garden News, The Frankfort Beacon, and The Piedmont Herald, dating all the way back to the 1880s.

This means you don’t have to endlessly scroll through reels on the microfilm machine.  If you have a computer and an internet connection, you have access to the same historical newspapers as the professional researchers…without leaving your living room! 

Donations towards this effort have made it possible to look beyond the borders of Mineral County and into the surrounding region.  With the cooperation of public libraries in Grant, Hampshire, and Hardy counties, we are hoping to digitize all the newspapers of record this side of the Eastern Panhandle which are currently in the public domain (1923 or older). 

If you are interested in supporting this project, checks can be made payable to WVU Potomac State College and addressed to the Director of Development at 101 Fort Avenue, Keyser, WV 26726. Please be sure to note on the memo line that your donation is for the PSC Library Newspaper Project.  Or visit give.wvu.edu/pscwvu and select “Mary F. Shipper Library at Potomac State.” Use the comments field to note that your donation is intended to support the Newspaper Digitization Project.  For questions about this project or more information, please contact the library at 304-788-6901 or email ngardner@mail.wvu.edu.