Stevens' "The Stute" newspaper is now archived online

Many universities' student newspapers have long and rich histories, but looking at early issues often requires paging through fragile copies in archives or tedious scanning through microfilm. That's no longer the case at Stevens Institute of Technology, where student newspapers from 1908 to 2000 have been digitized and made available online.

Ninety-two years' worth of Stevens' student newspaper, The Stute, is now archived in PDF format online, thanks to Joseph Cook, an industrious former member of The Stute's editorial staff. The new archive is one of the most comprehensive digital archives of any longstanding print publication now available in the United States (see it at stute.stevens.edu/archives).

Currently, with the help of a keyword-based search engine, browsers can read the details of Stevens President Humphreys' address to the incoming freshmen of 1923, or a 1950s series on Stevens' long-gone basement auto museum, or even a November 1920 student review of Charlie Chaplin's latest two-reeler. It goes to show that the full record of any print publication can serve as an education in history.

The project to digitize the entire archive came about in January 1999, when Cook, then a news copy editor for The Stute, became aware of special project funding available through Stevens' Student Government Association. Interested in saving the historic record of the paper, Cook put together a proposal to pursue a major preservation project.

After locating all available bound volumes at both The Stute's offices and at Stevens' Williams Library, he began a careful examination of the archive under the supervision of Richard Widdicombe, director of the library. The bound issues, all printed on highly acid paper, were in many cases in danger of complete deterioration. The preservation project at that point took on a special urgency.

After investigating preservation techniques used by more than 20 other publications, Cook consulted with Preservation Resources of Bethlehem, Pa., a company recommended by contacts at the University of Illinois. More research led Cook and the project staff to conclude that Preservation Resources was the best choice for the job.

In March 2000, with Assistant Project Leader Brook Stolark, who also served as The Stute's editor-in-chief that year, Cook obtained $16,500, from the Student Government Association to begin the preservation work. The process involved the microfilming of each page of each issue of The Stute, followed by scanning to TIFF files, and then a conversion from TIFF to text using OCR technology. The final process took several months to accomplish. In the end, the entire available archive of The Stute was condensed onto nine compact disks.

Throughout February 2001, the web page development proceeded, and hardware was configured to host The Stute Archives Site. On Feb. 25, 2001, the site went live online. The credits page lists nearly 50 individuals, both internal and external to Stevens, who contributed to the project.

Cook says that a number of glitches that occurred during this massive undertaking will be ironed out shortly. For example, several bound volumes from the early 1940s somehow never got picked up for scanning, but they will be included soon. Also, the retrieval format will be overhauled before long, allowing for browsing through an entire retrieved issue of The Stute, rather than a page at a time. Also, according to Stolark, the sporadically published early version of the paper, 1904-08, will be added to the online archive in due course.

Glitches notwithstanding, the project stands as a major achievement for digitizing a newspaper. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, for example, have only begun projects to digitize their complete archives, tasks that are projected to take five years or more to complete.

Cook, currently employed as a software engineer, remains the project leader and contact for The Stute Archives Project.

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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