By: Lydia McAllister
In early September, The Corsair held its first meeting for the fall semester. In this meeting, Dr. Marisa Mills, the faculty advisor of The Corsair, introduced to the attendees a plan at the Chandbourne Library on the Pensacola campus to digitize past editions of the newspaper. This project would be overseen by Librarian Dominique O’Shea, and any student who was available to help the archivization efforts was welcome and would be able to participate in a digital humanities project, which would be a great opportunity for any Humanities majors.
The very beginning of this project was conceived when Dr. Mills, seeing the immoderate amount of extra copies in the old Corsair room, sent pictures of the copies to Dominique O’Shea, asking if they could be organised in the “unofficial archive room,” also known as the Zaragoza room, on the first floor of the Chadbourne Library. She was excited to get the project off the ground and preserve the history found in the past copies. She also recounted that a similar organizing project from past Corsair editions was attempted before, but was never fully finished. The end goal for the project is for a website to exist for public viewing of the past copies. Students have been working on this project since September 3rd. On November 12th, the students finished organizing the physical copies. According to O’Shea’s records, a total of 75 hours have been spent organizing so far. The next step is to review and digitize the old photographs found with the newspapers. O’Shea reports that they also found a collection of CDs, hard drives, and floppy discs; Dominique said she has had to actually purchase a floppy disc reader now. One of her favourite finds in the stacks of papers was a Pizza Hut coupon from 1994. Although the ad was left in there accidentally, to our modern eyes this is a 30-year relic in pristine condition.
Like myself, many of the students working on this archivization project are involved as writers and editors for The Corsair. One such student who has spearheaded this project and has been an active member of the Corsair is Riley Glover. He has been working to organize the copious copies of The Corsair every Monday and Wednesday since September. One of his primary motivations for devoting so much time to this project is the possibility of donating the excess copies to the 309 Punk Project, which houses many local art exhibits and is an active voice in Pensacola’s community events. Riley divulged to me that, through organizing the past editions, he found that some of the editions of The Corsair were certainly “more unhinged.” This is true especially in the 1980s and 1990s, where there was an alternative presence writing and reporting at the college, which contained a level of “personality” that is not as present in today’s editions of the paper.
This sentiment was expressed after I asked about what he thinks is noticeably different between the past editions and the current editions, which Riley is a part of. Riley also disclosed that in the past editions, especially in the 2000s, the logo and design of the paper “changed way too much.”
Riley also had a lot to say on the topic of the difference between the past and present editions of the paper. “We can be doing more,” he got the feeling while looking at all the faces, names, and stories of our past. This question of “how did we lose all this momentum?” relates to a larger issue Riley has found in student involvement with the film club that Riley runs, where the club struggles to keep steady membership. When asked if he had a message for our readers, he unsurprisingly responded to our student readers, “Please be more involved with school activities.”
Although many of the students working on this effort are involved with The Corsair, one student, Chris Busc, is a volunteer working with the Chadbourne Libraries Archivisation efforts purely because he wants to be an Archivist. Chris is a History Major who first came across this project from librarian Sarah Addison. When he asked about the Archiving room on the first floor of the Chadbourne Library from there he was told about the project to digitise past Corsair editions back in September. When asked about his motivations to commit to the project, he said, “I find it mesmerising to preserve the history in this room.”
As a history lover, Chris found it particularly interesting to come across notable stories in the past newspapers, like disaster coverage from Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and seeing what our communities had to live through via a first-hand account. Another notable time capsule in newspaper form was the paper from August 2011, which covered the college’s name change from Pensacola Junior College to the Pensacola State College we now know. When given the chance to speak on The Corsair from a somewhat outside perspective, Chris kindly honored our team by saying, “The Corsair is easily one of the most important aspects of Escambia County,” and he “wants to thank Dr Mills and the English department for their noble mission.”
This project to organize the past editions of Pensacola State College’s The Corsair and make it publicly available is a project undertaken by the current students for the benefit of all future and past students who will be able to see the stories of their time at Pensacola State College. This project, when completed, will offer the community an opportunity to look into the lives, problems, celebrations, and attitudes of so many of the people in this area who interacted with the college in any capacity. The archivization effort of this project will also inspire more efforts to preserve Pensacola’s history and especially after so many projects like this one faced being sidelined and forgotten during COVID-19. It is pertinent that they be revitalised with volunteers who want to have a hand in caring for and witnessing our collective recent history. This project is ongoing, and students are welcome to come get involved every Wednesday at 5 pm in the Zaragoza room of the Chadbourne Library.