THE PENNSYLVANIA
DIGITAL
NEWSPAPER PROJECT
Access to Our Common Wealth
[HOME]
The Pennsylvania Digital Newspaper Project (PaDNP)
Information about Pennsylvania’s participation in the
National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP)
About PaDNP, Phase I (2008-2010)
The Penn State University Libraries was awarded a $393,650 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize historical Pennsylvania newspapers on microfilm, under the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). The two-year grant covered the digitization of 100,000 pages of Pennsylvania newspapers published between 1880 and 1922, which were entered into the Library of Congress's historical newspaper database, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/). The database is accessible to all, and readers can search content and read, download, save and print articles and advertisements from the available publications.
Librarian L. Suzanne Kellerman, the Judith O. Sieg Chair for Preservation, said that digitizing selected newspapers that currently exist on microfilm will greatly widen access to these rich historical resources. Providing good quality images from historically significant Pennsylvania titles along with keyword searching of the content will provide unknown research and scholarship opportunities to a publication type that has been under-utilized by researchers for years. Only within the last three to five years has technology allowed us to tap into published newspaper content. Providing access to the Commonwealth's rich newspaper heritage via the Chronicling America database will allow researchers, school students and everyone the opportunity to search newspaper content as never before.
Kellerman said Penn State worked with the State Library of Pennsylvania and the Free Library of Philadelphia to identify titles in their collections for the project. The search used U.S. census data to locate 12 cities in Pennsylvania with the largest populations from 1880-1922. They were Allegheny, Allentown, Altoona, Erie, Harrisburg, Johnstown, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Reading, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. From these cities, 48 publications were chosen for initial consideration, with the final selection made by an advisory board of researchers, scholars, librarians and historians.
The selection was based on intellectual content—research value, geographic representation and temporal coverage as evident by a long continuous run that includes the targeted time frame; and quality of microfilm. After review and evaluation, four titles were selected for digitization – the Scranton Tribune, the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, the Pittsburg Dispatch, and the Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia).
Kellerman noted that this program was considerably different from the many digitization projects her department has completed in the past, as it requires adhering to specific Library of Congress requirements and timelines. Staff from Penn State Libraries' Digitization and Preservation Department, Cataloging and Metadata Services, and Digital Library Technologies were involved in the project.
The NDNP is a long-term effort that aims to widen access to historical U.S. newspapers by providing content in digital format through the Library of Congress. Once completed, http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/ will contain historical newspaper resources from every U.S. state and territory. For more information on the NDNP, go to: http://www.neh.gov/projects/ndnp.html.
About PaDNP, Phase II (2010-2012)
Local history researchers can immerse themselves in the stories of workers, unions and businesses of the anthracite coal industry in the northeast, now that the Evening Herald, a Shenandoah, Pennsylvania newspaper, is available in digital format online. Eight years of the Evening Herald (1891 to 1899) have been uploaded to the online newspaper repository Chronicling America (www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/). All articles, advertisements and images can be viewed online, downloaded, saved and printed from any computer, offering researchers unparalleled access to this historic publication.
The Chronicling America website is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress. An NEH award program funds digitization projects at the state level. To date, more than four million pages of news from 28 states and the District of Columbia have been digitized, ensuring access to historic newspapers from many parts of the country for generations to come. The site is free for all to use, whether for school history assignments, genealogy projects or university research. Of added value to researchers is the rich level of metadata provided by the Library of Congress for every title, which makes it easier to find specific information.
Penn State's involvement in the project began in 2008, when the University was awarded a grant to digitize four newspapers from the time period 1880 to 1922—the Scranton Tribune, Pittsburg Dispatch, Lancaster Daily Intelligencer and Philadelphia’s Evening Public Ledger. An additional $393,489 was awarded under phase two, which covers the years 1836 to 1922. Project Manager for the Pennsylvania Digital Newspaper Project Karen Morrow said title selection depends on many factors, including geographical location, completeness of coverage and condition of the microfilm. "At present we can't digitize fraktur print, although the Library of Congress is working on accepting German text. This impacts the selection of Pennsylvania titles, as German-language newspapers were prevalent during that time period," noted Morrow. She said two other Pennsylvania titles would soon be added to the database—the Jeffersonian Republican (1840 to 1866) published in Stroudsburg and the Carbon Advocate (1873 to 1893).
Penn State collaborates with a number of partner institutions in the state—the State Library of Pennsylvania, the Free Library of Philadelphia, Bloomsburg University Library and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Other newspapers that will be uploaded during phase two of the project will be titles from Columbia, Wayne, Elk and Northumberland Counties. To read the Evening Herald directly from the Chronicling America website, go to http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87078000/.
