Extension Microfilm Digitization Project: Putting History Into Our Hands

The Virginia Cooperative Extension microfilm digitization project aims to create digital copies of and provide access to the agricultural reports of the state of Virginia. These primary source reports consist of the work of extension agents at the county-level from 1908 to 1968 for men and women from white communities and communities of color, including information regarding production and salaries. This paper will discuss the process of digitizing 141 reels of microfilm and making the contents accessible to researchers. The paper will highlight the methodologies and challenges experienced during the process as well as the importance of the data uncovered in the documents. It will give an overview of the effort it takes to provide access to primary resources that researchers need to uncover untold stories.

Digitization of the Microfilm

The original documents were scanned onto microfilm in the 1960s. The digitization lab at Virginia Tech's Newman Library has digitized, reformatted, sorted, and combined into text-searchable PDFs over 100,000 pages of county-level reports adhering to FADGI standards. The team had to document progress as the project moved through several stages of production before members of the team sorted through these PDFs to create item-level metadata to ensure the reports are findable and searchable.

Document Overview/ Importance

This set of microfilm was the most complete set in the state and in WorldCat, and had a reel guide of the counties and years for only 86 of the 141 reels. This project will bring to light individual reports, the authors, and the extension work that was happening in the whole state from 1908-1968. Because the authors include women and Black extension agents, this work brings local history into the hands of the communities we currently serve. As an example, a technician saw a report about her partner’s grandfather while processing the collection.