Pointer Index Completed
Sports
fans, do you know when the very first Pointer football team was formed?
Well, the Index to the UWSP Pointer will tell you! (Hint: it was October
13, 1894!). The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point University Library
Index to the UWSP Pointer, the student newspaper of the University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point, has been completed from 1895. The Pointer
Index is the first complete Wisconsin college or university student
newspaper index available on the Web. Bill Paul, University
Archivist, and Bonnie Price, Assistant Archivist, have been working at
either end of the index to fill in a gap from 1956-1972, and recently
"met" at 1968, completing the task.
The Pointer provides a fascinating glimpse into the history and
life of UWSP. In the article "Growth of SPN [Stevens Point Normal]
Library," dated May 1, 1923, you'll discover that the Library couldn't
move into its new quarters in old Main (the Library's third location on
campus, Old Main's former Assembly Hall -now the site of the north wing,
second floor). State engineers discovered that the floor of Assembly
Hall would not support the weight of the library. As the newspaper put
it, the Library was "an active menace to the gymnasium in use beneath"
(the floor of the new Library was the ceiling of the campus gymnasium!).
The index attempts to provide comprehensive coverage of campus life, opinion, and local events. Feature stories, Letters to the Editor, and the Pointer Poll are fully indexed. Only division level or championship sporting events are indexed.
The Pointer Index is available at: http://library.uwsp.edu/pointer/
Current (current school year only) issues of the Pointer are shelved in the Current Periodicals area on the second floor of the University Library. Issues from 1895- are in University Archives, on the 5th floor of the University Library. The Internet edition of the Pointer, from November 1998-, is also available on the Web:
http://www.uwsp.edu/stuorg/pointer/
For
another perspective on the history of UWSP, see Justus Paul's The
World is Ours: A History of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point,
1894-1994 (Stevens Point: University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Foundation Press, c1994).
Justus F. Paul is Professor of History and Dean of the College of Letters & Science at the University.