Alpena County Library is the recipient of a Community Impact Grant from the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan. This grant will be used to purchase and install a professional grade photo scanner.

The new equipment will allow the Special Collections Department staff to scan and preserve photographs and photographic negatives which will be converted to a digital format and uploaded into the Northeast Michigan Oral History and Historic Photograph Database. This database can be accessed either in-house or through the library’s website.

Special Collections Librarian Marlo Broad communicated a wide need for the scanner as she regularly receives requests from people wishing to share their family’s historic photographs with the archives, but only had a photograph negative or expressed wanting to keep the originals.

Prior to receiving the grant, alternative methods of accommodating these requests were prohibitively expensive. The new scanner will allow the staff to scan and preserve these negatives or photographs and return them to the original owners. Broad is also thrilled to have the means to begin the lengthy process of scanning the extensive variety of historically relevant negatives that have been gathering dust in the archives.

Among these are hundreds of glass plate negatives of local families and homes dating from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Additionally there are over 1,000 large format negatives from the AuSable family who assisted in the building of the Five Channels Dam on the Au Sable River in the early 1900s.

Editions of The Alpena News covering the years from 1963-1987 would become accessible once the negatives are scanned and uploaded into the database.

Winner of the 2016 Historical Society of Michigan State History Award for Institutions, the library’s Special Collections Department is honored to steward a collection that tells the story of the people of Alpena and of Michigan, those who made the region and state what it is today, and keep those stories relevant and fresh for generations to come.

Continuing this mission will be made easier through the generosity and support of the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan.