Notes about my research at the downtown El Paso public library

Although the Writing Center clipping file provided original copies of articles with the date and periodical name, the clipper did not note where in the articles were located, such as what page and section number. In order to utilize the sources (with many good quotes from professors, students, and the president at that time,) I decided to check the public library microform collection of local daily newspapers. While they did not have copies of the university paper, The Prospector, they did have The El Paso Times and Herald Post archives on microfilm.
 
Founded in 1881, The El Paso Herald Post is generally thought by many, to have been the better of the city’s two papers—better writers, editors, and even its layout was progressive, cleaner, more readable than the Times--although some would from time to time, liken its overall content to manure (The Herald Compost).

But as evening paper readership declined as well as the general loss of readers as a whole, this resulted in a general loss of advertising revenue for the two dailies, and eventually, cuts were made and the papers even tried utilizing the same printing operation. Eventually, the Times won battle and the war for city new readers, and the Herald ended its long and award-winning run on October 11, 1997. Yet this was not good news for either the Times or the city as the war came at a tremendous cost—it eventually lost its autonomy and became so much fodder for Gannett newspapers, although now it publishes through a partnership with Media NewsGroup. On a brighter note, the Herald is not totally lost, although not many digital archives are available. (But more on that later.) The El Paso Public Library has both local newspapers on microfilm, along with a collection of films from the New York Times that stretches back to the late 1800s. And while this is a time consuming way to conduct research, for years, microforms were the only format available aside from the much admired bound books that Nicholson Baker writes. While new articles are now published directly to the Internet, they still have their drawbacks that are similar to the old style microforms archives.

According to Baker in his book Double Fold, rolls of microfilm and transparencies of microfiche will, as also newsprint, decay—film becoming scratched and torn through use and  eventually to become lost. And while there are efforts to digitize newspaper archives (converting such microforms to zeros and ones), problems created within the filmic bits remain, mainly due to the fact that not all of the newspaper pages (which do include supplements and advertisements) made it through the scanning or photographic processes. Surprisingly, this exact problem is what I encountered as I searched for my articles last week—whether they were in sections B or C, whether within page x or y.
 
In my case, I discovered one page from the El Paso Times, dated January 16, 1977, had never been scanned! There it was, Section B, yet page 4 or 5 was not numbered and the other (4 or 5) missing. The film skipped from numbered page 3 to numbered page 6. Now, you could say it does not matter, that an accompanying article was on the unnumbered page, and therefore it makes sense that my article was on the other page. In other words, just declare the missing page number 5. However, that is not the point. The point is that our Writing Center has (for all we know) holds the only copy of the article outside of the Times’ morgue. While this is not an earth-shattering article without byline, it does have value and adds to the conversation about writing (tutoring) centers as situated within its various tangential communities of universities, students, faculty, researchers, and other writing and tutoring centers.
 
So far it seems, however, this article and page with its adverts, and other news have vanished, which is what Baker explains has happened all too often with the microform archival process—pages skipped; only the late or final editions archived—interim editions eliminated--erased from history and memory. And while I had read this paper tiger's explanation about such problems, never for a second did I ever believe I would see such results, where, in the context of doing research and needing a simple page number within a specific section. It is here, therefore, that originally started in a  Scrivener file, that now is this lengthy blog entry that I explain why I am having to “guess,” “fudge,” and by all accounts lie about the section and page number for the articles, “UTEP concerned About Lack Of Students’ Reading Skills,” dated January 16, 1977, from The El Paso Times.

This afternoon I emailed the Times requesting the missing information I need. Given the context, which is my use of the article, coupled with the current state of public higher education, more “modern” technology (read Internet) used to archive periodicals, and the subject of the article, this does effect lives today especially when (at least at this moment in time) the students being written about are now the parents of students attending college.

As for the experience of working with the microfilm readers, it was the same as it ever was except for the fact that I did not have to go down to the dungeon and share space and air with homeless old men—yes, they are almost always men. In tatters, they sit, with their greasy shopping bags at their sides, they spend their days reading from or sleeping among the daily newspapers. While the men are still there reading papers in a brighter and more open space, it does not mask nor hide the fact that there are still homeless men, reading to pass the time, sleeping during the day while others sit apart, sifting through old Comgraphix microfilm boxes, looking for articles not there. While the men read, I look around and see several decades full of dust and dirt around the base of the reader trolleys. It seems that they just transferred the readers, en masse from storage and then brought them up to the new space without ever thinking that they could use a thorough dusting/cleansing. Yes, the rolling chairs are new, but the readers, their trolleys, and their printers are filthy—old with library basement dust from two floors down, at least 20 years old. I know they are over 20 because I used to work for the sister company of Comgraphix (Mino-Micrographix) when I was pregnant with the Judge.

Now I am not complaining that the library ever invested in microforms. What I am wondering about if the second effect of the Internet will eventually and totally erase the memory of the El Paso Herald Post and its filmic morgue—are film readers still being manufactured? What happens when the film degrades and we can no longer read through the tipsy and dusty film readers? Is there an effort to transfer films to digital archives? Or is there not enough money for this either. At least for now I have contacted this subscription based archival web site and asked if they will complete these newspapers archives. Right now, they have a couple of years for each, but nothing near what their  combined 200+ years of publishing history could hold for students, researchers, writers, and historians.