[PADG:1466] National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP): " Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers"

["Laura Gottesman" <lgot@xxxxxxx>]

Posted on behalf of colleagues:

The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
announce the release of "Chronicling America: Historic American
Newspapers," an online presentation containing more than 226,000 pages
of public-domain newspapers from California, Florida, Kentucky, New
York, Utah, Virginia and the District of Columbia published between 1900
and 1910. The fully-searchable site is available at
www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/.

The text of the official press release is available at: <
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-061.html >.

"Chronicling America" is produced by the National Digital Newspaper
Program (NDNP): < http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/index.html >, a partnership
between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library
of Congress created to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of
U.S. newspapers with select digitization of historic pages as well as
information about newspapers from 1690 to the present. Supported by
NEH*s "We the People" < http://www.wethepeople.gov/ > program and
Digital Humanities Initiative: <
http://www.neh.gov/grants/digitalhumanities.html >, this rich digital
resource will continue to be developed and permanently maintained at the
Library of Congress: < http://www.loc.gov/index.html >.

Over a period of approximately 20 years, NDNP will create a national,
digital resource of historically significant newspapers published
between 1836 and 1922 from all U.S. states and territories. Also on the
Web site, an accompanying national newspaper directory of bibliographic
and holdings information directs users to newspaper titles in all
formats. The information in the directory was created through an earlier
NEH initiative. The Library of Congress will also digitize and
contribute to the NDNP database a significant number of newspaper pages
drawn from its own collections during the course of this partnership.
For the initial launch the Library of Congress contributed more than
90,000 pages from 14 different newspaper titles published in the
District of Columbia between 1900 and 1910.

The following six institutions received the first NDNP grants to
digitize papers in their respective states from the first decade of the
20th century:

    * University of California, Riverside, $400,000;
    * University of Florida Libraries, Gainesville, $320, 959;
    * University of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington, $310,000;
    * New York Public Library, New York City, $351,500;
    * University of Utah, Salt Lake City, $352,693; and
    * Library of Virginia, Richmond, $201,226.

New NDNP awardees will be announced later this summer.

The Library of Congress: < http://www.loc.gov/index.html > is the
largest library in the world. Its more than 134 million items -- books,
newspapers, periodicals, manuscripts, maps, photographs, films, sound
recordings and digital materials - are accessible through its 21 reading
rooms on Capitol Hill. The Library*s newspaper collections have grown
to comprise more than 1 million current issues, more than 30,000 bound
historical volumes and more than 600,000 microfilm reels.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National
Endowment for the Humanities: < http://www.neh.gov/ > supports learning
in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities.
NEH grants enrich classroom learning, create and preserve knowledge, and
bring ideas to life through public television, radio, new technologies,
museum exhibitions, and programs in libraries and other community
places.

Please contact the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) for
further information: http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/contact/ >.

>>>>

Laura Gottesman
Digital Reference Team
< http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-digital.html >
The Library of Congress