Thanks to the community, Sponsor the Observer Project completed
By Jon Knepp, Thompson Free Library director of library services
Thompson Free Library and the Dover Foxcroft Historical Society are proud to announce that our Sponsor the Observer campaign has been successfully completed thanks to the generosity of 34 individuals, organizations and businesses donating a total of $4,900.
The digital archive maintained by the Thompson Free Library and the Dover-Foxcroft Historical Society is a tremendous resource for our community. And now, we have made it even better by rescanning the Piscataquis Observer collection between 1921 and 1986, replacing badly damaged images with clean ones, allowing our community free access to search through the paper for names, towns, or really anything. This collection is a vital piece of our county’s history and for local historians, genealogists and anyone who wants to research our rich history and we are proud to provide access to it
The archive was created to house all of the county’s newspapers from 1838 to present as well as Foxcroft yearbooks (1940-present). Unfortunately, when the archive was created, the newspaper portion was made with a well-used, very scratched copy of microfilm. When scanned, entire lines went missing. e’s scanned in as c’s or vice versa. You can read the images, but searching is useless. Even The Piscataquis Observer itself became “The Piscatarus Qhseg ‘et.”
The enhanced scans allow users to search for themselves, their family, friends, their house or any part of our rich history. If you haven’t browsed the archive previously, now is a great time to check it out. If you need help doing so, that’s what we’re here for at the library! For more information, reach out at 207-564-3350, email director@thompsonfreelibrary.org or stop in and chat about it at 186 East Main Street Dover-Foxcroft, Maine 04426. Thanks again to all of our generous donors and those who worked on the project. For a full list of donors, please head to the archive: https://doverfoxcroft.historyarchives.online/home or www.thompsonfreelibrary.org.