Advantage Archives is the name of the company headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They specialize in microfilming and digitizing various document types for over 1,000 libraries, archives, museums, and other types of institutions across the US and Canada.
It is best to use their own words to describe their business. From their website: “We provide archival microfilming services to preserve a community’s past and digitize historical collections and documents of all kinds to make them practical to access in the present. We collaborate with communities across the United States to create free digital access to historical newspaper collections, photos, genealogy books, magazines, yearbooks, vital records, and other documents of significance.”
Almost every state in the US has a client of Advantage Archives. The states with the largest number of libraries are Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas.
The Community History Archives (CHAs), as they are named by Advantage, are free for all users to access and search and browse. Over 90% of the CHAs are accessible from anywhere. A small percentage of their clients restrict access to an “in-library” experience for copyright and other reasons.
There are over 100 million newspaper pages available to search amongst all the 1,000 clients of Advantage Archives. There is no “Federated Search”, i.e., each database is separate, and must be searched separately.
Their website is www.AdvantageArchives.com. A directory of all their installations is available at
https://communityhistoryarchives.com/. the directory is a fantastic resource!
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