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National Digital Newspaper ProgramWhat is the National Digital Newspaper Program? It is a joint product of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, with a pusrpose to create and further maintain a publicly available, online digital archive of historically significant newspaper issues published in the US during the whole time period between years 1836 and 1922. Also this program will enable readers to access holdings data and bibliographic records of 140,000 newspaper titles, issued from the 1600s to the present time. Later on it is planned to create encyclopedia-style articles and scope notes, discussing the historical role and significance of particular newspapers. Content will also include relevant in context historical information, each state/territory will get an award to collaborate with state partners for the achievement of this program. During March 2007 more than 226,000 newspapers, published between 1900 and 1910 in several US states were put on the "Chronicling America" – fully-searchable website. By December 2007 total number of pages almost doubled – it reached about 413,000, and in 2009 number of published pages has went over 1 million. All funding is obtained from the National Endowment for the Humanities, though their initiative called "We The People". Some History March 31 of 2004 was a day, when Bruce Cole, the directory of the NEH, and James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, met together to sign an important agreement on creation of the National Digital Newspaper Program. The NDNP is a descendant of the previous successful United States Newspaper Program, which was a several-decade hard work to microfilm and catalog the bulk of America's historic newspapers. This new program consists of two related phases. Each of phases in case of success will both greaten the scope of the NDNP and refine the data collection requirements. |