To the Editor,
Re: Harbour City should rebuild its history, Letters, May 5.
Mayor Bill McKay did not acknowledge a letter I sent him urging Nanaimo to somehow obtain the former Nanaimo Daily News website for posterity’s sake. A community is served by their local newspaper, yes, but is also the reason for its existence and profit. Yet when the Daily News folded, the citizens of mid Island lost access to all those news articles and stories from over a century.
We readers and writers in Oceanside lost the Oceanside Star forever when it ceased to publish. Where do we go to research a news item or reminisce about a story about our family, our organization? Thank God for clippings.
So when I read this letter, the issue of preserving the electronically archived history of Nanaimo and environs came back to haunt me and I now implore anyone with foresight to fight for the right to own and maintain the Nanaimo Daily News website before all is lost.
Gord ByersParksville