Library Director, Susan Pieper (right) presents Kim Sutton (left) representing the John Paulding Historical Museum a full set of the digital yearbooks for the museum’s collection. (Photo courtesy of the Paulding County Carnegie Library)
As part of the library’s ongoing centennial celebration, the library has digitized its historic high school yearbook collection. “We were contacted by Oklahoma Correctional Industries (OCI) about the possibility of having our yearbook collection digitized at no charge,” shares Susan Pieper, coordinator of this project. “It was an offer we really could not refuse. After ensuring the security of our yearbooks while in transit, the digitization began.” The OCI promotes its digitizing service by offering these free services. They hope that libraries and other entities will hire them to digitize other important collections.
The Paulding County Carnegie Library’s (PCCL) yearbook collection includes mostly high school books, but also a few lower grades. “We will be delivering a full set of thirty-four CDs of the digitized yearbooks to each county high school and the historical museum,” stated Pieper. “Our final goal is to upload the CDs to our website so researchers from throughout the world can look for relatives who may have been a student in our county schools.” The yearbooks were scanned page to page, so when a researcher clicks on page one, it will probably be the cover of the year book and the last page will be the back cover. All the pages are in order from front to back. The digital collection has been cataloged and processed by Teresa Reel and Jennifer Habern of the library’s technical services department and is available, along with the original yearbooks, at the main historic Carnegie library in Paulding in the Genealogy/Local History department. You do not have to have a library card to search these resources, but they are for in-house use only.
“It was important to the library to preserve these important research tools for future generations,” said Pieper. “We want children and researchers to be able to look back and see photos of their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and other relatives from when they were in school.” Old yearbooks are also very helpful in planning class reunions. Photos have been scanned of classmates and shared on posters at events. Photos can also be scanned or copied and given to senior citizens to remind them of their school days and open dialogs of what life was like for them as a young person.
“We have gaps in many of the current years,” shares Pieper. “We would encourage people to donate their recent yearbooks from Antwerp, Wayne Trace and Paulding to the library.”
The PCCL Digitized Yearbook Collection represents the following schools and years: St. John the Baptist Catholic (2001-2008); Blue Creek (1953-1971); Haviland-Scott (1940-1952); Latty (1942-1952); Grover Hill (1945-1969); Wayne Trace (1972-1977, 1981-2004, 2014); Wayne Trace Jr. High (1975, 1977); Paulding Middle School (1977, 1978, 1979); Emerald Center School (1954); Paulding Elementary (1974, 1975, 1976); Oakwood (1928-1971); Paulding High School (1916-2008 [the yearbook was not always published during the WWII years]); Antwerp High School (1937-2012, 2014).
For more information about the library or the digital yearbook collection call 419-399-2032, or visit the library during normal business hours (Monday-Thursday 9:00-8:00, Friday 9:00-6:00, and Saturdays 9:00-1:00).
