1️⃣,0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣,0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ That's one million pages digitized and counting.
The Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley is marking this major milestone in its LoCAL Digitization Project. A growing archive of California local government history searchable and online.
Learn more: https://igs.berkeley.edu/news/one-million-pages-and-counting 🧵 1/5
Comments (4)
2/5
The millionth page comes from a 1963–64 Contra Costa County Annual Financial Report, part of a larger effort to digitize serial publications like budgets, annual reports, and grand jury reports.
These records make it possible to track policy and spending changes year by year.
3/5
By the numbers as of April 2026:
•7,400+ items digitized
•Nearly 9,000 prepared for digitization
•450+ California cities documented
•All 58 CA counties included
•Materials spanning late 1800s to 2026
A wide ranging view of local government across time
4/5
This work is about more than preservation. It is about access.
Materials once only available in person at libraries or government offices are now openly searchable, enabling new research at scale across decades of public records.
5/5
Each digitized page captures a chain of civic decisions from creation to preservation to public access.
Together they form a long record of how California communities have grown and changed over time.
#digitization #opengov #california #archives #localgovernment #UCBerkeley