MOUNTAIN - Historic Saranac Lake deserves praise for the open-source wiki Web site it has created at www.hsl.wikispot.org.
HSL's Amy Catania said it best on Jan. 14 when she wrote us in an e-mail, "The HSL Wiki has quickly grown to 249 pages and over 400 photos (perhaps more than that now) describing local buildings, people and events. The HSL Wiki is a virtual museum, a community space where anyone can contribute history of Saranac Lake."
To HSL, keep up the great work. To Saranac Lakers and those interested in a fascinating community history, check out the site.
---
MOUNTAIN - Speaking of online historical treasures, the Northern New York Library Network's "Northern New York Historical Newspapers" project is a good cause to consider for financial support. If you've never checked out the wonderful, easy-to-use archive at news.nnyln.net, it's a must-see for people of any age. You can search any of the papers in its Web archive by keyword and quickly come up with whatever you're looking for.
This project is always worthy of support since there are always more newspapers to scan in, but it's especially so now because the NNYLN wants to expand its Enterprise archive, which now is limited to the years from 1952 to 1976, plus 1948. The group has access to the papers from both the Saranac Lake Free Library's Adirondack Room and the Adirondack Museum, but scanning all the pages of all those papers takes a long, long time. As the group says on its Web site, "Financial contributions to the Northern New York Newspaper Project will help us scan and index more newspapers more quickly."
To see what a full archive is like, check out this Web site's archive of The Lake Placid News, from 1914 all the way to 2007. Granted, as a weekly paper it has a fraction of the issues that need scanning, but still, it took a lot of time and money. The latter was aided considerably by the generosity of the Lake Placid Education Foundation (which also helped archive the Essex County Republican from 1844 to 1973).
You can contribute on the Web site with a credit card, or by mailing a check to NNY Historical Newspaper Project, 6721 U.S. Highway 11, Potsdam, NY 13676.
The Enterprise has already contributed to this cause, but this service is really for readers. If you want easy access to old Enterprise issues, please consider a donation to this project.