Irving Weber is going online.

A collection of stories written by Iowa City’s beloved historian and Iowa City Press-Citizen columnist is being digitized by the University of Iowa Libraries’ Digital Library Services Department.

“Irving Weber loved to share his stories of old Iowa City, and I think he would be pleased to share these stories in a new medium and make them accessible to the people of the community, the state and beyond,” said Nancy E. Kraft, UI Libraries preservation librarian.

Weber started writing his Press-Citizen column in 1973, and a collection of his work was eventually published in an eight-volume set by the Iowa City Host Noon Lions Club. That book is now out of print, but the UI Libraries is working with the Lions Club and the Iowa City Public Library to put those volumes online.

As part of the Iowa City Public Library’s celebration of Irving Weber Days, Kraft and Mark Anderson, digital initiatives librarian from UI Libraries, will present a program about this newly digitized collection on Thursday, May 11, at noon in Room A of the Iowa City Public Library.

Each volume contains about 100 stories, including accounts of historic Iowa City homes and their owners, early businesses and factories, Iowa City churches and early modes of transportation into the city, as well as other historical fascinations.

The Irving Weber collection is part of the Iowa Heritage Digital Collection (IHDC). IHDC is a collection of 8,000 documents, photographs, images, maps and other media about Iowa’s history and culture. This online collection was developed by libraries, museums, archives and historical societies across the state. To access the Weber collection as well as any of 30 other collections of the IHDC, check online at http://iowaheritage.org.

Using Optical Character Recognition software, the UI Libraries was able to create images of the article pages that are full-text searchable.