The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project and the National Digital Newspaper Program

Abstract

The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project (VTDNP) is a state partner in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), the NDNP is a long-term, national effort to build a freely accessible, searchable Internet database of historical US newspapers. NEH provides funding to state projects to select and digitize historic newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. LC provides the technical support and framework for preservation digitization. Digitized newspapers are archived by LC and made freely available through the website Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Vermont joined the NDNP in July 2010, when the University of Vermont Libraries were awarded NEH funding to embark collaboratively with state partners—including the Vermont Department of Libraries, the Ilsley Public Library of Middlebury, and the Vermont Historical Society—on the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project. Institutional partnerships and the engagement of committed individuals serve as a foundation to the VTDNP and provide an avenue to expand statewide infrastructures to accommodate large-scale microfilm-to-digital conversion and preservation efforts. Through collaboration and outreach, project partners select and digitize historical newspapers from microfilm and promote Chronicling America, a tool for discovery of these primary historical resources.