The Pantagraph: Illinois law, 200 years ago: Inside the quest to digitize state’s legal history. “A committee charged with preserving historic Illinois Supreme Court documents has received a $135,000 grant from the National Archives to digitize court records dating from the state’s infancy through the end of the Civil War.”
Chicago Tribune / Elkin Courier-News: Thanks to grant and hours of museum volunteer work, old Elgin newspaper photos now available online. “Hundreds of old black-and-white photos capturing decades of Elgin’s past are now online for the world to view thanks to the work of Elgin History Museum volunteers and a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Negatives of photos taken by The Courier-News between 1936 and 1994 were donated to the museum in the 1990s, museum curator Beth Nawara said. The images are being digitized so they can be made available electronically.” This project has just started — they’re about 3,000 pictures in to a collection of 100,000 images.
Daily Herald: After historic find, University of Illinois soil scientists want to dig up more on state’s land. “After stumbling upon thousands of Mason jars filled with soil in a University of Illinois barn, some of them over 100 years old, Andrew Margenot knew he had found something special…. In an attempt to gain unique insight into how Illinois soils have changed over the course of 120 years, Margenot and his team are now trying to resample soils at 450 locations throughout the state and compare them to the samples gathered by their predecessors.”
Chicago Sun-Times: Newberry Library online exhibition showcases images from the Great Migration. “A new chapter in Black American history is unfolding at the Newberry Library, courtesy of a recently acquired glass slides collection highlighting the significance of Chicago and several other Northern cities during the Great Migration in the early 1920s. The Great Migration was the movement of millions of African Americans from the rural South to the urban Midwest, Northeast and West.”
Illinois Courts: New online reporting system will take statewide court data to the next level. “Following integration, every court will be given access to custom dashboards, allowing them to assess the current landscape, identify any trends, and make well-informed court management decisions. Eventually, the Supreme Court and the [Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts] will no longer need to rely on manual submission from counties and will be able to provide judges and justice partners more detailed insight into Illinois Judicial Branch operations.”
Illinois State Genealogical Society Blog: BIG NEWS from the Illinois State Archives- Death Certificates Database Updated to 1971!. “ISGS has just heard fantastic news from the Illinois State Archives Director, Dr. David Joens- The Illinois Death Certificates searchable database at ilsos.gov has been updated to include death certificate entries for the years 1951-1971!”
Chicago Sun-Times: Preserving the legacy of Chicago’s Black social culture. “In my high school senior memory book, several pluggers from early 1990s teen parties crowd a plastic sleeve. They are documents of warehouse parties from a time when the West Loop wasn’t the West Loop, and when the South Loop didn’t exist as a moniker. I save everything, which is great because the Chicago Black Social Culture Map (CBSCM) is collecting local artifacts like the ones I have stored in my parents’ basement.”
Illinois Department of Public Health: IDPH and DPI launch an online COVID-19 tracker. “The Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced today a new website that tracks the levels of COVID-19 in wastewater samples in Chicago and other cities across Illinois. On the new site, visitors can search by city or county for up-to-date figures and trendlines from any one of 75 wastewater treatment plants around Illinois that are voluntarily collecting samples of raw sewage to be screened for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”
Chicago Tribune: As Chicago police prepare to relaunch ‘gang database,’ concerns remain the tool could unfairly sweep up many. “Critics remain concerned by the Chicago Police Department’s impending relaunch of its much-criticized ‘gang database,’ a tool intended to identify people with connections to street gangs, even after the process to revamp it was paused last fall at the behest of the city’s new police oversight committee.”
Chicago Sun-Times: Chicago design studio has MAPPED out local community-based resources. “MAPPED, a project of Design Trust Chicago, was started because the three founders of the trust realized there was a lack of accessible information about community design programs…. The public site, launched last spring, documents a range of design projects around Chicago. The database allows different designers to submit businesses, organizations, initiatives and spaces to the project, so other designers can view other projects’ cost, funders and partners, [Clio] Lyons said.”
Illinois News Bureau: New database catalogs police shootings in Illinois to improve accountability. “The Systematic Policing Oversight Through Lethal-Force Incident Tracking Environment project, called ‘SPOTLITE,’ identified more than twice as many police-involved shooting incidents than previously reported by the Illinois State Police, for a total of 694 lethal force incidents involving 734 civilians from 2014-21. Nearly two-thirds of those incidents occurred in Cook County. SPOTLITE includes any incident when police use firearms – including those with nonfatal outcomes – as well as any other use of force that results in a death.”
Chicago Sun-Times: The Sun-Times’ new chapter: Our digital content is now free for everyone. “…today, we are dropping our paywall and making it possible for anyone to read our website for free by providing nothing more than an email address. Instead of a paywall, we are launching a donation-based digital membership program that will allow readers to pay what they can to help us deliver the news you rely on. It’s a bold move: Reporting the news is expensive, and the converging market forces of inflation and an anticipated (or possibly already here) recession could further endanger local newsrooms like ours. But we know it’s the right thing to do.”
New-to-me, from Commercial-News: Quick receives broadcast pioneer award. “Doug Quick, retired TV weathercaster/news anchor, broadcaster, author and museum curator has been named Illinois Broadcasters Association’s 2022 W. Russell Withers Jr. Downstate Broadcast Pioneer…. Quick’s resume includes a 40-year career as commercial and industrial video voiceover talent, an author (Pictures on the Prairie: The First Ten Years of Mid-Illinois Television History) and created an online museum, Central Illinois’ On-Line Broadcast Museum …”
Illinois State University: Historic Illinois State alumni and marketing publications digitally preserved . “With 110 years of material to look through, each issue contains valuable insight into the evolving sociopolitical landscape of the country. One magazine which was disconnected from these previous publications, The Statesman, ran for just four issues between 1969 and 1971. It offers great insight into views on the Vietnam War, race relations on campus, marijuana, and other markedly countercultural perspectives of the era.”
The Verge: Snap agrees to $35 million settlement over privacy lawsuit . “Snapchat users in Illinois who used filters or lenses may be eligible for a payout. Illinois reached a $35 million settlement with Snap this month, according to the Chicago Tribune, in a class action lawsuit over how user data was collected.”
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