PaNP

PaNP Phase I (1983-1990):

Cataloging Phase

The actual fieldwork on the project began in January 1985 at the Penn State University and the University of Pittsburgh sites. Fieldwork soon commenced at the remaining two regional sites. Cataloging teams were assigned counties to survey and asked to locate every identifiable newspaper collection in their designated area. Generally, each cataloging site began their work by creating a field guide bibliography of what newspaper titles existed in each county. Additionally, using standard directories of repositories in the state, a comprehensive file of repositories was created that included academic, public, special and school libraries, newspaper publishers, owners of defunct newspapers, antique dealers, and private newspapers collectors. Teams were sent into the field to conduct inventorying and cataloging work. Back at the office, cataloging and holdings data was entered into OCLC to ensure immediate access to found titles. Cataloging teams also made recommendations of titles in need of filming to ensure permanent access and preservation.

At the conclusion of the 1985-86 grant period, the State Library had cataloged its own collection of over 1,500 titles held in bound volumes and in microformat while the University of Pittsburgh had cataloged its collection and had begun to catalog collections of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. At the Penn State cataloging site, staff worked to inventory the massive newspaper collection held at the University Libraries as well as inventoried and reported holdings from 217 repositories from 15 central and north central counties. Work at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania was well underway in the Philadelphia area.

By the end of April 1986, the OCLC database, the utility used to record bibliographic and holdings data of newspaper found, contained authenticated bibliographic records for 2,143 Pennsylvania newspaper titles, represented by 3,557 local holdings records.

In 1986 a second grant application for the period covering January 1987 through December 1989 was submitted to and awarded by NEH to complete the fieldwork in the remaining counties and to begin the microfilming phase of the project. With the 1986 proposal funded, fieldwork in the south central region was assigned to the State Library along with the responsibility of editing local holdings records for union list participants whose files were converted from hard copy to microfilm. Penn State was assigned five counties from the northern tier of the south central region (originally assigned to the State Library site) and was given an additional ten counties in the northeastern region. Fieldwork started by the University of Pittsburgh site in the south western region of Pennsylvania with the first NEH grant continued with this second grant award. Additionally, Pitt was assigned 11 remaining counties from the northwest region. Throughout the entire project, the Pitt staff continued to input bibliographic and holdings data complied by the Penn State staff and provided CONSER authentication for all sites. Also with the 1986 funded NEH grant, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania site was assigned to complete the cataloging of the Society's collection by the end of 1987 and to conduct fieldwork in the five-county southeastern region of the state. Concurrently with its inventorying and cataloging assignment, the Historical Society managed the microfilming phase of the PaNP from 1986-1989.

In 1987 and 1988, project activities at the Historical Society site were paid (excluding direct costs of the commercial microfilming) from a Pew Memorial Trust fund. Pew funds were used to pay for administration of the microfilming stage of the project, $50,000 in direct costs of filming south central region newspapers, and for portions of the site's bibliographic activities.

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