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NEH Announces Guidelines for 2013 National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) Awards - Application Deadline: January 17, 2013

October 19, 2012

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is now soliciting proposals from institutions wishing to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Applications are due January 17, 2013. Program awardees participate in the creation of a national, digital resource of historically significant newspapers published between 1836 and 1922 in all U.S. states and territories and printed in English, French, German, Italian or Spanish. Each award supports a 2-year project to digitally convert 100,000 newspaper pages from that state's collections, primarily from microfilm negative.

The program provides access to this resource through the Chronicling America web site (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/), hosted by the Library of Congress (LC).

For more program information, please visit the NEH's program page at http://www.neh.gov/divisions/preservation/national-digital-newspaper-program or for technical information, visit the LC site at http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/.

NEH Announces $3.6 Million for 2012 NDNP Awards, Including 4 New States

August 20, 2012

Recently the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced awards totaling $3.6 million to 13 institutions representing their states in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Four of these institutions - the State Historical Society of Iowa; the University of Maryland, College Park; Central Michigan University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill - are new to the program this year. Nine other institutions - the Arizona Department of Libraries, Archives and Public Records; the University of Hawai'i, Manoa; the State Historical Society of Missouri; the University of New Mexico; the Ohio Historical Society; Pennsylvania State University, Main Campus; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; the Washington State Library and the University of Vermont - have received continuing awards to contribute additional content to the program.

This funding will support the selection and digitization of historic American newspapers published between 1836 and 1922 by each participating state, according to NDNP technical guidelines. The Library of Congress (LC) will make these newspapers freely available through the Chronicling America Website (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) beginning in mid-2013. In all, 32 states have participated in the program.

NDNP, a partnership between the NEH and the LC, is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of all U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages. Supported by NEH, this rich digital resource will be developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress. The NEH grant program will fund the contribution of content from, eventually, all U.S. states and territories.

The press release is available on the NEH website at: http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2012-07-26 (external link)

NEH to Offer National History Day Student Award for Creative Use of the Chronicling America Historic Newspaper Archive

June 22, 2012

Last week, NEH’s Chairman, James Leach, announced that the Endowment would create a new category of National History Day (NHD) prizes for students who incorporate research using Chronicling America. To assist young researchers, EDSITEment (http://edsitement.neh.gov/ (external link)), NEH’s educational website, will also develop a new set of online resources around Chronicling America to help facilitate and encourage use of the newspaper material among students and educators. The NEH press release is found at: http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2012-06-14 (external link).

Last Updated: 10/22/2012