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Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project


B. Introduction


The Clewiston Library Digitization Project

Hendry County is a rural, agricultural county in Southwest Florida with a population of
39,561 according to the 2005 Annual Estimates of Population (CC-est2005-alldata-12)
census released on 8/4/2006.

Hendry County includes two incorporated municipalities: Clewiston and LaBelle.
Clewiston Library, Barron Library (located in LaBelle, the county seat) and Harlem
Library comprise the Hendry County Library Cooperative. As the result of a long-range
planning process in 2005, all three libraries provide Hendry County residents with
materials and general information on current topics and titles. In addition, each library
has a secondary individualized area of focus. Clewiston Library serves the city residents
as well as a large Hispanic population living in outlying rural areas. This year Clewiston
Library has established a Florida room to house historical reference material and books
pertinent to local and state history. Harlem Community Library was founded in 2000 to
serve the needs of a section of Clewiston. It is located in a former school building which
also houses the Harlem Academy daycare center. Harlem's current expansion plans call
for a state-of-the-art wireless computer lab and a new children's section. Their specialty
is a growing African American collection. Barron Library has experienced a large
increase in circulation of 43% over last year due to a large portion of the county's
population growth. Barron Library collects genealogical materials and has a new
computer workstation for area genealogists to use.

Clewiston Library has one professional librarian, the Library Director, who also serves as
Cooperative Coordinator. It also has five fulltime paraprofessionals and one part-time
paraprofessional, as well as several teen volunteers who help out on holiday vacation
periods and over the summer. Barron Library has two fulltime and two part-time staff.
They have one volunteer and several teen volunteers during the summer. Harlem Library
has had approval from the county and the Hendry County Library Advisory Board in
2007 to hire a fulltime person. They currently have three part-time employees and
several volunteers during the summer.

Hendry County Library Cooperative has 27,589 registered borrowers. In addition, we
have seasonal visitors who use the Internet while they are vacationing in Florida.

The Hendry County Library Governing Board is the Clewiston City Commission. There
is also the Hendry County Library Advisory Board that provides assistance with policy
matters.


The total budget for Hendry County Library Cooperative for 2006-07 is $923,959.00.







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project

Hendry County residents use the public access computers heavily in all county facilities.
The Hispanic students need special attention both in schools and in the library.
According to the 2000 U.S. Census fact sheet, only 54.2% of Hendry County residents
have obtained a high school diploma or equivalent degree, compared to 80.4% of the total
U.S. population. Approximately 30% of our adults are functioning at the lowest level of
literacy.

The county's Hispanic population has risen to 18,078, as of July 1, 2005. This represents
a significant increase from 39.51% of the county's population in 2000 to 45.70% in 2005.
Hendry County's population has the largest percentage of Hispanics of any county in
Southwest Florida. Children make up 46.5% of the county's population and of these
children, 33% of them are living below the poverty level.

We are requesting an LSTA grant to digitize the Clewiston News newspapers from 1928-
1945, since the quality of the negatives of these papers before 1945 on file with the
University of Florida is too poor to digitize. This project will compliment the National
Digital Library Program, whose goal is to have all Florida newspapers available online.
The newspapers are deteriorating rapidly because the quality of the newsprint was
inferior, especially during the war years.

The Hendry County Libraries would also like to upgrade our website in the future by
adding additional historical materials, such as photographs, birth records, photos of
artifacts, early manuscripts and documents related to settlements, land transactions, and
Indian relations and trading.


D. Need


Clewiston History

The current historical information available digitally about the Clewiston area is
negligible. Our target audience for this project is the researchers who would access the
Clewiston News for data on the local news that would only be available in these papers.
Through the Florida Digital Library at http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/UFDC.aspx?c=fdnl
we will give this information a wide audience. Erich Kesse reports that the 2005 issues
of target newspapers are currently being digitized for FDNL. The Caloosa Belle and
Clewiston News for 2005 are already up and other 2005 titles are in the process of being
digitized pending load. All 2006 titles are now being digitized. Therefore, retrospective
digitization will provide a more complete history.

The Hendry County Library Cooperative would like to provide historical information on
our website for residents, students, visitors, veterans, genealogists, teachers and scholars.







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project

Southwest Florida's history lies in the frontier stories told in small agricultural
settlements around Lake Okeechobee and to the West. The Caloosa Belle, Belle Glade
Sun, Clewiston News, Glades Democrat, and Okeechobee News are the most authoritative
available source of the history of Clewiston and the surrounding area. Clewiston was not
settled until the mid-1920's and the city's charter from the State of Florida was not
enacted until 1931. These publications are an irreplaceable treasure documenting the
history of the development of Clewiston, LaBelle, Moore Haven, Belle Glade, Pahokee,
Okeechobee, and Canal Point.

In addition, the newspapers contain valuable information on the history of aviation, since
John Paul Riddle, a pioneer in aviation training, airplane manufacturing, and airline
operations, operated Riddle field here in Clewiston during WWII. He also constructed
and ran bases in Arcadia, Daytona Beach and in Obion County, Tennessee.

Harlem History

Florida Thomas, Director of the Harlem Community Library, indicates that the history of
the Harlem Community before the 1960's is only available through the Clewiston News.
There is not a written history of Harlem, which used to include an area owned by U.S.
Sugar called Townsite, in the old days. Ms. Thomas owns photos of the homes built in
Townsite, which were all moved on a truck one day by U. S. Sugar to another location in
Harlem because of fear of civil rights unrest. There are plans by local historians to write
Harlem's history someday, and when that day comes, these early local accounts will be
primary source material for the historical book on Harlem.


Other Research

These early years of the Clewiston News contain critical primary source data of interest to
many other researchers as well. The most significant topics of interest are early Florida,
Florida pioneers, Clewiston history, Harlem history, the Everglades, the Seminole
Indians, and WWII aviation. A local writer is compiling a history of Clewiston, which
will also use these newspaper accounts for accurate historical information about our
town.

War Veterans have inquired about specific people and events in their history, and these
facts have to be individually researched by our staff and that of the Clewiston Museum.

For example, the library received a phone call from Mary Margaret at a Florida veteran's
hospital inquiring about a plane crash in this area between 1943 and 1945 for a patient.
She had contacted several media sources in the area by telephone, to no avail. The
Clewiston Library staff spent several hours looking through the bound volumes for this
information.







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project


The newspapers had to be searched individually to retrieve the information for this
patron, whereas digital access could give have given this veteran an answer to his query
online.

In addition, WWII veterans can recreate parts of their war experience and training and
reconnect with their fellow servicemen and women. The information will be available
worldwide for scholars researching American aviation history. From 1941-45 is a
particularly significant time period for historians.

During the war, Riddle-McKay Aviation School of Florida, a private contractor for the
United States government, built and operated bases, training some 26,000 young men to
fly. Riddle Field in Clewiston, in Daytona and in Arcadia were important U. S. Airforce
training bases during WWII. RAF pilots came here to train with our Allied troops to
fight the Axis powers overseas. This collaboration was beneficial to both countries'
fighting forces. These men and their sons and daughters will have access to primary
source information on this accomplishment with the successful completion of this project.

The Clewiston News' obituary information will be available to genealogists who are
researching their family histories.

Individuals who grew up in this area can readily retrieve information that is pertinent to
their past.

As part of a greater whole, the goal of digitizing all Florida newspapers will be closer to
realization with the completion of this project. Historians, teachers, genealogists and
veterans worldwide will benefit from the retrieval of information contained in these
significant volumes. These early events chronicled the pioneer spirit that formed
America's heritage.

E. Inputs

1. Volumes. The 884 volumes of the Clewiston News from 1928-1945 are owned by the
Clewiston Museum. Bound volumes are given to them every year for safekeeping by the
newspaper staff. These volumes are bound together in a yearly book.

2. Staff. Barbara Oeffner, the Library Director, will be the project manager for this
undertaking. Her duty will be to oversee the project to its successful conclusion.
Jeff Barwick, the Clewiston Museum Director, will coordinate the resources needed to
physically ship the newspapers to the designated vendor. Barbara and Jeff have worked
together on other projects, including the Sugar Festival last April and on a One Book,
One Community photo display at the library. Sondra Taylor-Furbee, Executive Director
of SWFLN and Christopher Jones, Education Coordinator, will advise and assist with the
digitization project.







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project




3. Grant Funds. The LSTA grant will be used to digitize the old brittle newspapers and
make them available to everyone through the University of Florida and a link to the
Hendry County Library website.

4. Partner Organizations. The Clewiston Museum, as a partner in this project, will
provide part of the funds to carry out the tasks involved in this project. We will work
together to provide access to these historical early years of the Clewiston News.

The University of Florida, under the direction of Erich Kesse, will host the digital version
of the Clewiston News and make this data available through their databases.

The Southwest Florida Library Network will provide the Clewiston Library help with all
aspects of their digitization of the Clewiston News. Executive Director Sondra Taylor-
Furbee and Digitization Director Christopher Jones have had experience with
digitization, and they will provide expertise and assistance with this project. They are
currently working with the Clewiston Museum and other historical organizations on a
SWFLN digital preservation project funded with LSTA grant monies.

F. Action Plan

The Clewiston Library and Clewiston Museum will advertise a request for proposals to
digitize the Clewiston News from 1928-1945.

After the proposals are received, we'll review them and have them discussed by a
committee of Clewiston Library Board members, SWFLN, and the Clewiston Museum
Board members.

The Clewiston Library will provide the estimated 80 hours of staff time to bubble wrap,
box up, and tape closed the bound volumes of the Clewiston News from 1928-45. We
will provide the materials such as packing boxes, bubble wrap, book tape and Styrofoam
peanuts to assure the newspapers are not damaged in transit to the scanning site.

The Hendry County Library Cooperative will, in partnership with the Clewiston
Museum, prepare the newspapers for shipment. This will come from two staff members.
The Director will supervise another staff member in the packing of the newspapers for
shipping to the OCLC Preservation Center or iArchives. Both vendors have extensive
historic newspaper digitization experience working with institutions participating in the
National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). iArchives is the University of Florida's
vendor for NDNP. OCLC Preservation Resources has assisted University of Florida in
its Caribbean newspaper digitization projects. The other staff member will be either an
employee of the Clewiston Library or our partner the Clewiston Museum, a member of







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project
the Friends of the Library, or one of our volunteers. The shipping charges will be paid
for by the Clewiston Museum.


The Library Director has had experience in a similar project in her former position as
reference librarian for the Palm Beach County Library System. Fifteen hundred pounds
of The Belle Glade area newspapers owned by the Lawrence E. Will Museum from 1924-
present were packed and shipped by Phyllis Lilley, Belle Glade Branch Manager, and
Barbara Oeffner, reference librarian, in 2004. These newspapers were microfilmed by
the OCLC Preservation Center. This project assured the preservation of the local history
these newspapers represented. The newspapers were deteriorating and were fragile when
handled by researchers. Bits of paper came off when they were handled.

The Clewiston Library Digitization Project would like to digitize the early years of the
Clewiston News so that the information will be accessible to a worldwide audience.

Copyright

The Clewiston Library will adhere to copyright compliance. We will use SWFLIN's
authorization form to make sure the Clewiston News and other documents will have the
appropriate copyright permissions.

The Clewiston newspapers were not copyrighted in 1928-1945. However, the ownership
is still with The Clewiston News. They want the Clewiston Library to keep the archival
copies along with the Clewiston Museum, as they do not have storage space.


Preservation Plan


Outsource

OCLC Preservation Center in Bethlehem, PA or iArchives in Linden, Utah will make
three copies of the data in greyscale. One will be the property of the Clewiston Library
(surrogate copy), one will be owned by the Clewiston Museum, and one will be for the
University of Florida Digital Library Center to add to the Florida Digital Newspaper
Library.

After the newspapers have been scanned and processed by OCLC or iArchives, they will
be sent back to the Clewiston Museum, where they are currently housed. This will
necessitate unpacking and storing the volumes from 1928-1945. We estimate this work
will take from 25-30 hours. Staff or volunteers will provide this labor.

Once the files are digitized, and metadata is attached, they can be stored wherever is most
convenient, on our Hendry County Library network, or on a remote third party host. The







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project

newspaper text and digitized images will be attached to any needed metadata and stored
in an appropriate database in non-compressed tiff file format at 300 dpi, in compliance


with FDNL standards. The surrogate (digital copy) will be preserved by the Clewiston
Library. There will also be a digital copy for the Clewiston Museum.
Erich Kesse has indicated that the Florida Digital Newspaper Library at
http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/UFDC.aspx?c=fdnl1 will be willing to host the data on their
server, giving full credit to The Clewiston Public Library, the Clewiston Museum, LSTA
and the publishers. There are plans to make FDNL data cross-searchable with the Florida
Electronic Library in the near future. Although FDNL is independent of PALMM, Erich
Kesse said that there are also plans to make it cross-searchable with PALMM.

Users can search archived documents with either a simple search, using keywords or an
advanced search using headlines, bylines, pages, truncated words, and other user defined
customized fields. Each search result will include metadata and an image of the
document.


Publicity

The Clewiston News project will be announced through local media, PBS station WGCU
in Ft. Myers, the SWFLN newsletter, and the Clewiston Chamber of Commerce. We will
request 6 public service spots on WAFC, the local radio stations and Radio Fiesta
whereby the Clewiston Library Director and Clewiston Museum Director read a
prewritten ad and music is plugged in behind it.

We will publicize it on the Hendry County Library website, the City of Clewiston
website, and at all three Hendry County libraries. The Clewiston Museum will also
publicize it to their members. We will notify the local schools and churches, as well as
the local businesses through the Rotary and Lion's Clubs. We will publicize the intent to
digitize the back issues from 1928-1945 as soon as we are notified of the LSTA grant
award.


Timeline


October, 2007

We will obtain a final quote from OCLC and iArchives regarding expense of the
scanning project. Then the Clewiston Library, The Clewiston Museum, SWFLN and the
University of Florida will advertise a request for proposals. A committee will be formed
with representatives from The Clewiston Library and our partners the Clewiston







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project

Museum, SWFLN, and the University of Florida Digital Library. We will select the
vendor that can provide the best price and services for our needs.

The Clewiston Museum will order shipping labels from FedEx and obtain shipping
charges to and from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Linden, Utah or another location where
the selected vendor is situated.


November, 2007


The Clewiston Library in partnership with the Clewiston Museum will wrap, pack and
box up the 884 Clewiston News volumes. To assure that they're not damaged, we'll use
appropriate packing materials. Barbara Oeffner, the Clewiston Library project director,
will supervise this activity.

The cost of rebinding the newspaper volumes. We will have the selected vendor rebind
the newspapers.

January, 2008

Unpacking the return volumes will take 25-30 hours. This can be done by library and/or
museum staff and volunteers.

Store and preserve the original Clewiston News volumes in archival boxes.

Test the digital data for quality control.

Add the new link to our Hendry County Library website.

Have the Clewiston News image files uploaded to Florida Digital Newspaper Library at
http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/UFDC.aspx?c-fdll. This can be done with the Digital Library of
the Caribbean toolkit or another tool.

Attach the additional components at the University of Florida to comply with FDNL
standards. These services will be provided at no cost as a matching contribution from
this partner.



G. Budget Page and Narrative

The Clewiston Library Digitization Project will have a number of components that will
be delegated to Clewiston Library and Clewiston Museum staff. SWFLN and the
University of Florida will be consulted and used to answer questions and give advice







Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project



throughout the project. All the partners will work to together to achieve a successful
outcome to this project.

The cost of staff time to supervise the packing and transportation of the Clewiston News
1928-1945 to the vendor will be donated by the Clewiston Library.

FedEx shipping charges to and from the vendor will be paid by one of our partners, The
Clewiston Museum, estimated at $700.

The cost of scanning & digitizing the newspapers, which is estimated by iArchives, Inc.
to be $10,296 for 9,300 pages will be paid for by the LSTA grant.

The estimate from OCLC Preservation Center is $12,000. (We have obtained two
estimates because we will have to issue a request for proposals for this project.)

The Clewiston Library will donate the staff time to unpack the volumes, estimated at 30
hours.

The company iArchives, Inc. or OCLC Preservation Center, or another vendor will scan
and digitize the Clewiston News so that the important history of this area will be made
accessible to students, researchers, and scholars.

The University of Florida will provide the following:

1) JPEG derivatives (made from TIFF) ...630 pixels wide...for $.01 per page.
2) JPEG2000 (JP2) derivatives (made from TIFF)...NDSP specification ..$.04 per
page (Univ. of Florida cost)
3) TXT derivatives (Made from TIFF) using advanced PrimeRecognition software,
configured with 6 optical character recognition engines for best accuracy $.15 per
page (Univ. of Florida cost)
4) Mark-up for image deployment (structural metadata)... compliant with
UFDC/FDNL standard $0.115 per page
The cost of the University of Florida's share is $.35 per page times 9,300 pages =
$3,255.00

The number of hits on the web site will be measured to indicate how many viewers have
searched for information in the Clewiston News. A web poll will be designed and
conducted to determine how many searchers have found the information they seek in the
back issues from 1928-1945.

We are requesting that the requirement to match 1/3 of the funds over $10,000 be waived
since Hendry County is a rural county.







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Hendry County Library Cooperative
The Clewiston Library Digitization Project


The total budget required to complete this project is $12,000.