Millions of village and town records nationwide beg to be preserved. However, in many, if not most, cases there is little chance that those records will be saved. The costs are high, and even if there are those who care, there often isn’t funding for such things. Following is an excerpt from an article dealing with the Coal City, Illinois village records:
Municipal documents, some dating back to the village’s formation, sit on a shelf at the village hall. Each year the pages of the leather-bound books yellow a bit more and the ink fades a shade lighter.
“This is our history and it needs to be preserved,” said Village Clerk Pam Noffsinger, who has asked the Board of Trustees to consider budgeting funds to restore the documents.
There are about a dozen books containing the handwritten minutes of village board meetings, birth records and police magistrate documents from as far back as 1881.
Noffsinger’s afraid that if the documents continue to be ignored, they won’t be around for future generations.
“I understand it’s an expensive process, but these are our village records and unless we stop this, it will only get worse,” the clerk told trustees.
A records preservation service has estimated the restoration cost at a little more than $9,800.
Read the full article by Ann Gill in the December 30, 2008 Coal City Courant.