Archives and Special Collections launches Student Newspaper Digital Collection

Student journalists have narrated the evolving story of UofL’s cultural life for decades through its student newspaper, The Louisville Cardinal. Looking up these stories is much easier now that Archives and Special Collections has made historic issues of the newspaper available online.

A gift from David A. Jones, Jr. and Mary Gwen Wheeler covered the cost of digitizing The Cardinal’s 1926-2013 issues. The work was labor-intensive, including scanning aging issues of the paper, indexing each page and describing it for the online archive. Issues from 2014 on are available through the Cardinal’s issuu.com profile.

Archives and Special Collections has been preserving paper and microfilm copies of the paper since the founding of University Archives and Records Center in 1974.  But printed newspapers grow brittle with age. Digitizing the newspaper reduces the burden on fragile originals, and because the archive is full-text searchable, relevant stories are much easier to find.

The University of Louisville’s student newspaper has been published, under a variety of names, since September 24, 1926. Sometimes called the University of Louisville’s Cardinal or simply Cardinal, it became The Louisville Cardinal in 1966, a title it retains today. The Cardinal – as it is more generally known – currently produces both print and web editions, providing a training ground for student-journalists.

While it has always served as an important news source for the University community, past issues are used by researchers – including students and alumni/ae – to investigate the history of the University, the nature of student life, and the impact of local, national, and global events on our community. It is also a wonderful place to stroll down memory lane.

 

 

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