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The Pennsylvania Newspaper Project (PaNP)
Information about Pennsylvania’s participation in the
United States Newspaper Program (USNP)
About PaNP, Phase I (1983-1990)
Background
The Pennsylvania Newspaper Project (PaNP) began in 1983 when the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) granted the State Library of Pennsylvania $10,000 to develop a plan to catalog and microfilm Pennsylvania newspapers. The State Library working with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Library Association, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and the University of Pittsburgh Library developed this multi-year plan to carry out the necessary work. At the time it was estimated that the inventorying and cataloging phase would take four years to complete and the State Library expected to apply to NEH for supplemental funding. Pennsylvania was one of the first large states to join the United States Newspaper Program (USNP).
In 1984 the NEH awarded the State Library $312,418 for a two-year program, 1985-1986. Matching funds of $112,419 needed to be raised in Pennsylvania to earn the full NEH amount. The Pennsylvania General Assembly appropriated $30,000 in 1984-85 to the State Library as part of the match requirement. Funds were subsequently secured from the Pew Memorial Trust, Philadelphia and other donors.
During the two-year period of the grant, 1985-1986, the State Library coordinated the overall work to locate, catalog and microfilm newspapers published in Pennsylvania and out-of-state papers held in Pennsylvania repositories. In order to carry out the state-wide effort, the State Library contracted with other libraries for cataloging in assigned geographic areas: the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. In 1986 a fourth cataloging site was established at the State Library. Management of the microfilming phase was assigned to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The University of Pittsburgh assumed the responsibility of the quality control of the cataloging.
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.
Microfilming Phase
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania managed the filming phase of the project on behalf of the statewide project. Supplemental funds granted by NEH to the State Library in mid-1986 permitted the Society to employ a microfilming project coordinator and a project assistant who handled many of the details of the program, including developing a preliminary list of papers to be filmed based on an established set of criteria, negotiating with owners of the collections to be filmed, and overseeing all supervision of the contract with the microfilm producer.
While the planning for the filming stage of the project began in July 1986, it was not until April 1987 that the first titles were picked-up for filming. Because of the prohibited costs and the desire to avoid duplication, it was decided early on that only those titles never filmed would be considered as candidates for filming. The microfilming coordinator and staff worked closely with the regional site catalogers to identify titles worthy of being reformatted. Hundreds of workforms generated by the catalogers were used by the microfilming team in its selection process. Newspapers proposed for filming were evaluated according to a set of criteria developed during the planning phase of the project. The interests and concerns of the communities these papers represented were also taken into consideration and addressed during the selection process. A Technical Committee, with representatives from the State Library, the Historical Society, Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh made the final decision on the selection of papers for filming. The Daily Review, a Towanda, Bradford County newspaper that traced its history to 1879 was the first paper preserved by the PaNP.
As titles were selected, ranked according to research importance, intended audience, geographic scope, period of publication, physical condition, accessibility and availability of substantially complete runs, the filming coordinator worked with staff from each lending repository to have the titles packed, transported, collated and filmed. One copy of the microfilm (3P – third generation positive) was generated and deposited with the lending institution that provided the paper to be filmed, and a second copy (again a 3P – generation positive) was deposited at the State Library and made available for interlibrary loan. The State Library retained ownership of the archival master while the print master was stored at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in Harrisburg for future production of service copies.
At the conclusion of the PaNP in December 1990 some 7,921 titles were located, holdings inventoried and titles cataloged. Of the titles found not already on film, 270 titles, representing 3,203,114 pages were reformatted to microfilm.
End of Phase I
Although the initial thought was to preserve those titles never filmed, and to film runs of newspapers from each county from the earliest surviving paper through 1980, it quickly became apparent that the funding would not cover this level of filming. Many more titles were found in hard copy than previously thought and funding fell far short of the need. At the time NEH required matching funds on a one-for-one basis for the microfilming phase of the project. An amount of $50,000 was committed by the Pew Memorial Trust for partial support of the work of the Historical Society site and for microfilming titles published in the five-county area surrounding Philadelphia. Solicitation of additional private funds to meet the matching requirement to earn full NEH funding during 1988 proved a challenge. Small donations ($100- $300) were received from several small publishing firms or historical societies. A pledge of $10,000 payable in early 1988 and $10,000 payable in early 1989 was received from the McLean Contributionship helped to close the funding gap. Requests for assistance were sent out to additional foundations in Pennsylvania that had a record of support to historical and library programs; none proved successful. A request for state funding to provide the additional $86,350 needed to earn the maximum NEH funds for 1988 was included in the State Library’s 1988-89 state budget request but was not funded.
In the end, as the available filming dollars dried up and as attempts to find new funding sources became futile, the Technical Committee revised its selection decisions to include only a partial run of at least one paper from each county. Needless to say, many newspaper titles high on the priority list were filmed only partially or not filmed at all.
The recent impetus to continue to preserve historic newspapers on microfilm can be contributed to the successes, labors and shortcomings of the NEH-funded Pennsylvania Newspaper Project program, 1985-1990. While teams of catalogers completed their inventorying and cataloging of newspaper caches from all 67 counties of the state, funding for the microfilming phase of the project fell far short of what was needed. A list of titles yet to be microfilmed unofficially compiled in March 1992, two years after the close of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Project program, showed that 762 titles from across the Commonwealth remained unfilmed.
After a 14 year hiatus, it was with this foundation in place that after funding was sought from NEH to launch Phase II (2004-2005) to support the preservation of newspaper titles not filmed during Phase I of the project that concluded in 1990.
About PaNP, Phase II (2004-2006)
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) granted the Penn State University Libraries’ Preservation Department $350,000 over 2 years (2004-2006) to conduct the second phase of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Project (PaNP). A truly statewide effort, the PaNP preserved to microfilm a variety of historic newspapers from around the Commonwealth. Citizens of the Commonwealth can access and borrow film via their local public libraries.
The PaNP was one of nineteen national preservation projects selected as one of the NEH's 2004 We the People grants. Established on Constitution Day 2002, the initiative supports the notion that the study of history is essential to the preservation of freedom.
Phase one of the PaNP, conducted 1985–1990, reformatted to microfilm over 3 million pages from 270 newspaper titles. They are available through the State Library of Pennsylvania via the Libraries’ Interlibrary Loan. Phase two filmed 355,942 pages from 58 titles. Sue Kellerman, head of preservation and principle investigator for the grant, described the PaNP as “a welcomed second chance to preserve even more of the state’s rich newspaper heritage.”
A selection committee composed of individuals around the state with expertise in Pennsylvania newspapers guided the selection of titles to be filmed. Project staff located at Penn State’s Libraries carried out the necessary plan of work. The microfilming project coordinator, based at Penn State’s Preservation Department, was responsible for organizing and overseeing all aspects of microfilming activities, collaborating closely with repositories and private collectors to locate titles selected for filming, and building a website dedicated to the project’s past, present, and future.
About PaNP, Phase III (2006-2008)
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) granted the Penn State University Libraries' Preservation Department $349,998 for two years (2006–2008) to conduct the third phase of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Project (PaNP). A truly statewide effort, the PaNP preserved to microfilm a variety of historic newspapers from around the Commonwealth. Citizens of the Commonwealth can access and borrow the service copy microfilm via their local public libraries.
The PaNP was one of 35 Preservation and Access grants selected as one of the NEH's 2006 We the People grants. Established on Constitution Day 2002, the initiative supports the notion that the study of history is essential to the preservation of freedom.
Phase I conducted from 1985–1990, reformatted to microfilm more than 3 million pages from 270 newspaper titles. They are available through the State Library of Pennsylvania via the Libraries' Interlibrary Loan. Phase two filmed 355,942 pages from 20 counties representing 58 titles on 360 reels. Sue Kellerman, head of preservation and principle investigator for the grant, described the PaNP as "a welcomed second chance to preserve even more of the state's rich newspaper heritage."
The third phase, which began April 1, 2006, identified previously unfilmed newspapers in 24 counties primarily from heavily populated urban area surrounding Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions and the northwest corner of the state. Titles ranked high in the selection criteria were microfilmed. By the completion of the grant, the project preserved 412,034 pages from 56 titles on 488 reels of microfilm
A selection committee, composed of individuals around the state with expertise in Pennsylvania newspapers, guided the selection of titles to be filmed. Project staff located at Penn State's Libraries and the State Library of Pennsylvania carried out the necessary plan of work. The microfilming project coordinator, Karen Morrow, based at Penn State's Preservation Department, was responsible for organizing and overseeing all aspects of microfilming activities, collaborating closely with repositories and private collectors to locate titles selected for filming, and building a Web site dedicated to the project's past, present, and future.
Title Selection Process, Phase II & III
As a starting point, PaNP staff searched the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) database to determine whether or not newspaper titles selected during Phase I (1983-1990) were ever filmed. Libraries, historical societies, publishers, other organizations, and individuals were encouraged to submit newspaper titles for consideration. Titles, which were found to be partially filmed or never filmed, were submitted to a Selection Committee, composed of individuals around the state with expertise in Pennsylvania newspapers. The titles were evaluated and selected for preservation based on criteria that included research importance, demographic and geographic scope, accessibility to the public, availability of a substantially complete run, and physical condition.
