One of our local newspapers is now available online through the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection! Years 1963-1980 of The St. Joseph Record have been digitized and are available to view online.
Click here to explore the digitized St. Joseph Record.
Thanks to an initiative headed by the Champaign County History Museum and the Champaign County Newspaper Digitization Initiative (CCNDI), a portion of the microfilm held here at the Champaign County Historical Archives has been digitized and uploaded for anyone to view. Digitizing microfilm is a resource intensive process. CCNDI is working to get more years of the St. Joseph Records available; the full run of the paper is from 1894 – 1980.
Local newspapers offer a wealth of information for genealogy and local history researchers, documenting the goings-on of their communities. In addition to searching by date, users of the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection (IDNC) can also search by name or topic. Currently, there are 13 newspapers available through the IDNC from Champaign County alone, and many more from the rest of Illinois.
The St. Joseph Record, and our other local newspapers, will continue to be available on microfilm here at the Archives. For any microfilm or newspaper related questions, contact archives@urbanafree.org.
-Sara Bennett
Archives Librarian