The BPA Library has
come a long way since its inception on Jan. 23, 1939. At a time when many
people were just getting electricity for the first time, its founders could
never have conceived of an entirely virtual presence. And just a year ago,
neither could we.
But in some ways,
the BPA Library has been preparing for this for years.
Since the early 2000s, the library has been digitizing
requested articles and archival documents and delivering materials to patrons
via email.
“We have some unique documents found nowhere else in the
world, and we didn’t want to loan out the only hardcopy and risk the dog
chewing on them, so we’ve been digitizing things to preserve them and make them
more widely accessible,” says Tina Kay, BPA Library digital assets librarian.
And when BPA Library archivist Libby Burke joined the staff
in 2012, this on-request digitization effort became a proactive digitization
and preservation project.
“The first step was to digitize the original films made by
BPA from 1939 – 1987,” says Burke. “Then we added introductions explaining the
context and history behind the making of the films and created DVDs and
streaming content to share by the hundreds with customers, BPA workers,
retirees and the public all over the world.”
Then in 2014, the team shifted its focus to the digitization
of the BPA collection (everything written by, for or about BPA) containing more
than 16,000 documents. As the final step of this digitization project, library
staff has been going through the hundreds of articles by BPA authors that had
aggregated in binders by publication year.
“It’s not as simple as just scanning the articles into the
system,” says Burke. “Quite a few of the articles were on old, faded copy paper
and were very hard to read. We were able to find better copies prior to
digitization, increasing legibility and accessibility.”
As these documents become ready, they will be added to the
searchable catalog.
Patrons may currently access the following digital services.