National Digital Newspaper Program

NEH is soliciting proposals from institutions to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP is creating a national digital resource of historically significant newspapers published between 1836 and 1922, from all the states and U.S. territories. This searchable database will be permanently maintained at the Library of Congress (LC) and will be freely accessible via the Internet. (See the website, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.) An accompanying national newspaper directory of bibliographic and holdings information on the website directs users to newspaper titles available in all types of formats. During the course of its partnership with NEH, LC will also digitize and contribute to the NDNP database a significant number of newspaper pages drawn from its own collections.
NEH intends to support projects in all states and U.S. territories, provided that sufficient funds allocated for this purpose are available. One organization within each U.S. state or territory will receive an award to collaborate with relevant state partners in this effort. Previously funded projects will be eligible to receive supplements for continued work, but the program will give priority to new projects. In particular, the program will give priority to projects from states and territories that have not received NDNP funding.
Applications that involve collaboration between previously funded and new projects are welcome. Such collaborations might involve, for example, arranging with current awardees to manage the creation and delivery of digital files; offering regular and ongoing consultation on managing aspects of the project; or providing formal training for project staff at an onsite institute or workshop.
Over a period of two years, successful applicants will select newspapers—published in their state or territory between 1836 and 1922—and convert approximately 100,000 pages into digital files (primarily from microfilm), according to the technical guidelines (PDF) outlined by the Library of Congress. Applicants may select titles published in any language with a valid ISO 639-2 language code. Newspapers with valid language codes will be included in the searchable database maintained at the Library of Congress. Search engine support may vary by language, as detailed in the Library of Congress technical guidelines.