A Special Presentation by Ellen Swain, Celestina Savonius-Wroth, William Schlaack, and Jessie Knoles.
Join the Illinois Newspaper Project (INP) and the Student Life and Culture Archives to learn about the history of U of I student newspaper, the Daily Illini, and the Library’s efforts to preserve and make it digitally accessible. Explore past events on campus through the digitized Daily Illini and discover how digitized newspapers have changed the way we conduct research and how the public can help improve the accessibility and searchability of the Daily Illini for future researchers.
The Daily Illini (called The Illini from 1874-1907) has been student-run throughout its history, except for a brief period from 1880-1902. The paper covers local, state, and national news as well as campus events and student opinion.
Through the efforts of the Illinois Newspaper Project and the University Archives, the majority of the Daily Illini has been digitized and made freely available to the public. 23,320 issues (1874-2010) are available through the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections (IDNC). In October 2023, the INP filled the existing gap in content (1975-2006), completing the digitization of all issues preserved on microfilm.
Email us any significant past University of Illinois events that you'd like our panelists to discuss during the webinar by March 20 at friends@library.illinois.edu.
Meet our panelists:
Jessie Knoles is the Newspaper Content Coordinator for the Illinois Newspaper Project (INP). Prior to her work with the INP, she was an archives assistant at the University Archives and the Lincoln Collection Research Specialist at the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections (IHLC), both at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She received her MSLIS from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021.
Celestina Savonius-Wroth is the Head of the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library, and the subject librarian for History, at the University of Illinois. She has been involved with the Illinois Newspaper Project since 2015. Helping researchers discover historical newspapers is one of the most enjoyable parts of her job.
William Schlaack is the Digital Reformatting Coordinator and Coordinator for Digital Preservation Services at the University of Illinois. He discovered his passion for preservation while working in archives during his senior year of college, leading him to attend the University of Illinois and graduate with an MSLIS in 2012. William now oversees large scale digitization and reformatting projects, including working with the National Digital Newspaper Program, Internet Archive, and HathiTrust.
Ellen D. Swain is the Stewart S. Howe Archivist for Student Life and Culture at the University Archives, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she administers the Student Life and Culture (SLC) Archives, an endowed program dedicated to documenting student experience nationally and at the University of Illinois
Space is limited and registration is required. A Zoom link will be provided immediately after registration.
If you will need disability-related accommodations in order to participate in any of these programs/events, please let us know. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time to meet your access needs.
