Spread the News The National Digital Newspaper Program

About the NDNP

• Partnership

• National Endowment for the Humanities

• The Library of Congress

• State Projects

• Long-term effort to develop a freely accessible digital resource of historically significant newspapers from all the states and U.S. territories.

• Continues the work of the United States Newspaper Program.

About the NDNP cont.

• NEH awards support state projects to select and digitize

historically significant newspapers published in their

state

• Library of Congress also digitizing newspapers from its own

collections

• Technical guidelines and support for state projects

provided by the Library of Congress

Chronicling America

• Digitized newspapers hosted by Library of Congress on

Chronicling America website • As of January 2011, over 3 million pages available

• States may also host digitized newspapers locally

• Accompanied by national

newspaper directory of

bibliographic and holdings

information • Complied as part of the United

States Newspaper Program (USNP)

Program overview

• One organization from each state receives award to

collaborate with relevant state partners.

• Two year award (renewable).

• Newspapers selected for digitization must have been

published in state between 1836 and 1922.

• Material may be in English, French, Italian or Spanish

(including bilingual).

State award conditions

• Digitize approximately 100,000 pages (primarily from microfilm) in accordance with Library of Congress technical guidelines.

• Assemble advisory board of scholars.

• Develop selection criteria.

• Update bibliographic records for national directory.

• Write historical essay about each digitized newspaper.

• Deposit copy of microfilm used for scanning with the Library of Congress.

Unsupported activities

• Digitization of serials that are not newspapers.

• Digitization of newspapers from outside of timeframe.

• Costs related to local reuse or enhancement of digitized

newspapers.

• Costs associated with the development of a local access

interface.

State projects

• 25 states have received awards so far.

• Vermont first state in New England to receive award.

A Massachusetts Digital Newspaper Project?

• Plans are currently underway to apply for NEH funding

in January 2012.

• Through participation in the NDNP we hope to develop

the Massachusetts Digital Newspaper Project as a

statewide collaboration to provide digital access to

historic Massachusetts newspapers.

Ways to get involved

• Contribute your microfilm, knowledge, or support

• Come to informational meeting today at 4:30pm in the

Ipswitch Room.

• Email me at crissmeyer@bpl.org

Thank you!

• Chrissy Watkins Rissmeyer

Boston Public Library

Digital Projects Metadata Coordinator

crissmeyer@bpl.org

VERMONT DIGITAL NEWSPAPER PROJECT (VTDNP) AND THE

NATIONAL DIGITAL NEWSPAPER PROGRAM (NDNP)

Chris Kirby

Ilsley Public Library Adult Services and

Technology Librarian

Abbreviation for my talk:VUN

Vermont Digital Newspaper Project—VTDNP

U.S. Newspaper Project—USNP

National Digital Newspaper Project—NDNP

Vermont joins the NDNP

Researching the NDNP—Summer, 2009

Applying to the program—Fall, 2009

Award announcement—June, 2010

Project kickoff—August, 2010

• Newspaper Publishing in Vermont

Early publishing centers: Bennington, Brattleboro, Burlington, and Rutland

19th century papers: Brandon’s Vermont Telegraph

Papers with extended runs: Burlington Free Press, Rutland Herald

Vermont & the United States Newspaper Program (USNP)

Past efforts to enhance access to Vermont Newspapers:

Burlington Free Press/ Rutland Herald Index

Newspaper Digitization (VTDNP) and enhanced access to Vermont Newspapers

Digitization in Vermont UVM’s Center for Digital Initiatives

Vermont Folklife Center Online Digital Archive

Middlebury College Digital Collections

Readex—Early American Newspaper Series

Background for VTDNP

Inventory of Vermont Papers

Microfilm of varying quality

Selection of digitized newspapers

Cultural Organizations with digitization expertise

National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP)—a collaborative venture

Library of Congress

National Endowment for the Humanities

Awardees (state level institutions)

• VTDNP: A collaborative Project

Partners:

University of Vermont Department of Libraries Ilsley Public Library Vermont Historical Society

VTDNP and other NDNP awardees

NDNP Awardees: A diversity of approaches

Current Phase of Project: Implementation

Select newspapers to be digitized

Describe newspapers to be digitized

Digitize newspapers and duplicate microfilm

Validate and submit digitized newspapers

Okay, so we have NDNP grant money. Now just how do we do this?

A National Digital Newspaper Program state project process from film in a drawer to

searchable online content.

Tom McMurdo

Microfilm is the basis of any NDNP project.

Where are your newspaper master negatives?

Most master negatives of newspapers from 1836-1922 are “pre-standards.”

Microfilm evaluation:

Acetate or Polyester? Vinegar syndrome

Positives and negatives Scanning quality

Scanning: In House or Vendor?

2 very different approaches: control versus overhead

My Experience: Outsourcing Scanning

Scanning RFP

Several excellent companies working on NDNP state projects.

Criteria for evaluation

Selecting a vendor

Workflows

Title selection & Essays

Masters, positives & negatives

Metadata Creation

Scanning, OCR and XML files

Quality Assurance Check

Film and Files to LC

Searchable pages online

Title selection and essays

Selections must be justified

Stakeholders

Degree of formality

Microfilm

Positive vs. Negative film

Metadata creation: frame by frame film inventory

Scanning, OCR and XML files

Quality Assurance Check

Film and Files to Library of Congress

Online searchable files

Ongoing production (100,000 Pages)

Success!