Historic Issues of The Insider Now Available Online

Decades-old issues of The Insider have been made easily-accessible through the digitization of historic Pitt documents. The digitization of The Insider was only a part of the recent effort to digitize past Pitt documents.

“I think local history is really important, as is understanding the history of the place you live, the campus you are at,” said Eve Wider, director of the Millstein Library at Pitt-Greensburg. 

“Documenting Pitt” is the title of the recent campaign to digitize Pitt documents. Collections of Pitt-Oakland’s student newspaper,“The Pitt News,” dated back to 1910, can be accessed through the project. Historic issues of Pitt-Greensburg’s own “Insider” from decades ago can also now be found at UPG Student Newspapers and Newsletters . 

“I think it’s really important to include the student voices in this project,” Wider said. 

The recent digitization has been made with student voices in mind. Documentarians and archivists hope to highlight student opinions throughout the history of Pitt and its student-run newspaper publications. Students from graduating classes from decades ago can find articles they might’ve written or read issues they helped participate in.

Brian Root, assistant director of housing and residence life and an alum of Pitt-Greensburg’s “Insider” staff, said, “I was excited to see it, because I could go back and read some of my stuff from  22 years ago,” 

 Rather than gain access to the physical archives only after asking and being permitted to do so, students old and new are free to browse past publications from various decades. The very first publication of the Pitt-Greensburg paper, then titled The Forum, available in the archive is from February, 1971. 

From the home page of the site, the Pitt-Greensburg icon is located near the bottom of the screen. That will lead to a page where all digitized content from Pitt-Greensburg can be found, including pictures, videos, papers, and prints. To find past issues of the Pitt-Greensburg paper, click on the “Newspapers” option on the left-hand side of the screen. Then click on the image of  “UPG Press.” Click “View this item”. The archive of Pitt-Greensburg’s newspaper publications from 1971 to 2006 can then be found to browse through. 

“It’s been a long time since I worked in the journalism world, so it was nostalgic to see this,” Root said. 

Because of the efforts of Pitt staff across campuses, anyone with an interest in the expansive history of Pitt’s archives can find documents easily through Documenting Pitt: Historic Records of the University of Pittsburgh