Barton Community College’s Cohen Center for Kansas History now has two resources that give the public the ability to study and preserve historical documents and other papers, making them available to future generations when otherwise those pieces of history would eventually be lost.
This year, the Cohen Endowment purchased a state-of-the-art microfilm/microfiche reader. The reader adds another dimension to the archiving abilities already in place with the digital publication scanner that the Cohen Center received four years ago, said Mary Hester, Barton’s Director of Learning Resources.
The new reader, which is an ST ViewScan, allows much easier access to items that have been saved in microfilm and microfiche formats than previous microfilm machines offered. The publication scanner lets people save their family histories from books and other documents before they are lost to deterioration.
Access to both of these resources is free for everyone in the college’s seven-county service area, Hester said. Both pieces of equipment have been provided by the Barton Community College Foundation primarily through donations from Dr. Mary Cohen, Leawood, who with her husband, Bart, donated their extensive collection of Kansas history books to the college and funded the construction of the Cohen Center for Kansas History in the college’s Learning Resource Center in 2005. Helping fund the $17,395 publication scanner along with the Cohens were Rob and Trisha Dove and the estate of Quentin Dressler.
The microfilm/microfiche reader was purchased through the Cohen Endowment at a cost of $9,175, and the cost of the computer for use with the reader was $721, also provided through the endowment.
The microfilm/microfiche reader is new technology. Hester said Barton’s Cohen Center was one of only four places in the state to have this technology when the college received it in January.
"Anyone who has used the old microfilm and microfiche readers knows how cumbersome it was to get those items up on the screen, then find exactly the right spot," she said. "Then your only option was to take notes or print to paper."
The new reader is a vast improvement, she said. The ST ViewScan improves viewing, does faster scanning and has the ability to save items to a computer instead of just printing them on paper. People can choose exactly what they want to print or save. They can print a partial page instead of printing the complete page.
A high-tech digital camera on the reader takes a picture of the image on the screen, then the information that is needed can be saved as a JPG image, or it can be converted to a PDF. Individuals can either e-mail it to themselves or save it to a flash drive or CD.
People are welcome to bring microfilm to the library so they can use the reader, or if someone is doing research and needs to borrow a newspaper on microfilm from the Kansas State Historical Society or another source, Barton’s library will obtain it through interlibrary loan, and have it waiting for use when the person arrives at the library.
The publication scanner that has been available in the Cohen Center for the past four years allows people to scan documents and pages of books and save them digitally. "The value of having the scanner is that it actually scans from the top instead of the bottom, so you don’t have to put any pressure on the book to scan it," said Hester.
"The camera is so high-tech that the page could move and the scanner would correct it," she said. "The software is able to go in and adjust for dirt or other markings on a page, making it easier to read from the scanned version than from the book itself."
The college library will digitize anything that is copyright free, Hester said. Her long-term goal is not only to scan as many non-copyright materials as possible, but also to get permission from copyright owners to allow access to their materials.
"One of the concerns we have as librarians is that paper falls apart," Hester said. "The papers you have under your bed or in your attic from your parents and grandparents are deteriorating so what we want to do is get them preserved for you." If the information is related to Kansas history, she would like to retain a copy for the Cohen Center, too.
"I brought in letters that my parents wrote to each other during World War II when they were dating each other," she said. She put the letters from her parents on a CD and took it home to make copies for her brothers and sisters. "So now we all can read the letters from my parents without damaging those family archives any further, and that’s what we want to do for other people," she said.
Hester said she is glad to be able to put information in the format that people find most comfortable. If they are more comfortable with print the equipment is set up to print. If they prefer the digital version, they can have it.
The equipment is easy to use, Hester said, but she will have a staff member or a well-trained volunteer available to help. "We know something new can be intimidating, so we will always have someone there to help them," she said. "We’re working very hard to make it as convenient as we can. We just see this as a way the college can give back to the community that has supported us for so long."
Barton history instructor Linda McCaffery, who uses this equipment for her research, is available in the Cohen Center to assist people with the scanner and reader on Wednesday afternoons beginning at 1:30 p.m. Hester or a library staff member will assist on other days during library hours, which are 2 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday; and 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday. Hester would also like to have some volunteers from the community come in to assist people. They would be asked to give one hour or more of their time to help others use the equipment. Anyone interested may contact Hester by phone, 620-792-9364, or e-mail, hesterm@bartonccc.edu.
Hester is quick to acknowledge that this new archiving equipment has been provided because of the kindness of donors. Everything in the Cohen Center has been donated, and community members are welcome to use it free of charge, Hester said.
Part of Hester’s dream is that others who have books and magazines about Kansas history will donate them to the Cohen Center. She is interested in family histories, county histories and anything on Kansas history for the Cohen collection.
She said the Cohen Center has several documents that no one else has. In fact, so far she has found 23 items that no one else in the state has, and that is in addition to having the most comprehensive collection of Little Blue Books in the nation.
"It’s really neat to have that kind of information available to people," she said, stressing that every item the center gets enhances the scope of what the collection offers.
"It’s Mary Cohen’s dream that we continue to grow with what she and her husband started, and we plan to do that," Hester said.
