NEH Grant Programs
National Digital Newspaper Program, Deadline: November 4, 2008 for projects starting after July 2009

Guideline Overview
Budget Resources
I. Program Description
II. Endowment-Wide Programs and Initiatives
III. Award Information
IV. Eligibility
V. Application and Submission Information
VI. Application Review
VII. Award Administration Information
VIII. Points of Contact
IX. Other Information
• Budget instructions
(1-page PDF)
• Budget form(1-page PDF)
• Definitions of types of funding
Program Resources
• NDNP Web Site
(hosted by Library of Congress)
• Technical Guidelines
(66-page PDF, hosted by Library of Congress)
• Sample Application:
Ohio Historical Society
(24-page PDF)
• Sample Application: Pennsylvania State University Libraries
(30-page PDF)
• Sample Application: University of North Texas
(24-page PDF)
• Frequently asked questions
• DUNS number requirement

Grants.gov Help
• Registration Checklist
• Download the current version of Adobe Reader
• How to convert documents into PDFs
• Tips for Creating PDF Files in Grants.gov Applications
• Grants.gov FAQs
• Grants.gov customer support

To obtain a printed version of these
guidelines, call 202-606-8446, send
an e-mail to info@neh.gov, or write
to NEH, Office of Communications
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC 20506.
Date posted: August 20, 2008
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
(CFDA) Number: 45.149
Questions?
Program questions should be directed to NEH's Division of Preservation and Access at 202-606-8570 or preservation@neh.gov. Hearing-impaired applicants can contact NEH via TDD at 1-866-372-2930. Technical questions should be directed to the Library of Congress at ndnptech@loc.gov. Technical documentation of the current phase is available at http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/.
Grant Program Description
NEH is soliciting proposals from institutions to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Ultimately, over a period of approximately 20 years, NDNP will create a national, digital resource of historically significant newspapers from all the states and U.S. territories published between 1836 and 1922. This searchable database will be permanently maintained at the Library of Congress (LC) and be freely accessible via the Internet. [See the beta prototype Web site, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers at http://www.loc.gov/
chroniclingamerica/.] An accompanying national newspaper directory of bibliographic and holdings information on the Web site will direct users to newspaper titles available in all types of formats. LC will also digitize and contribute to the NDNP database a significant number of newspaper pages drawn from its own collections during the course of this partnership between NEH and the Library.
The NDNP will be implemented in several phases. The Endowment intends to support projects in all states and U.S. territories provided that sufficient funds allocated for this purpose are available. One organization within each U.S. state or territory will receive an award to collaborate with relevant state partners in this effort.
Previously funded projects will be eligible for continued support to digitize pages from new decades, as the program increases its chronological span. During this phase of NDNP, successful applicants will select newspapers—published in their state in English between 1860 and 1922—and convert, primarily from microfilm, over a period of two years, approximately 100,000 pages into digital files, according to the technical guidelines (66-page PDF) outlined by the Library of Congress.
The NDNP will not support:
  • the digitization of serials that do not fit the definition of newspaper used by the Library of Congress (“A newspaper is a serial publication, appearing usually at least weekly, which serves as a primary source of information on current events of general interest.”);
  • the selection of newspapers that fall outside the decades of 1860 through 1922;
  • the costs of enhancing the digital corpus of newspapers created by NDNP for incorporation into other databases; and
  • the costs of a local access interface at the awardee institution.
The NDNP builds on the foundation established by an earlier NEH initiative: the United States Newspaper Program (USNP). Since 1982, the Endowment has supported a cooperative, national effort to locate, catalog, and preserve on microfilm American newspapers published from the 18th century to the present. NEH has funded newspaper projects in all the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. When completed in 2009, USNP will have provided bibliographic control to widely scattered newspapers and have preserved on microfilm (to consistent national standards) selected titles from this vulnerable corpus. LC has provided technical assistance for USNP since its inception.
II. Endowment-Wide Programs and Initiatives
The Endowment currently sponsors two agency-wide programs—We the People and Digital Humanities—and one special initiative, Rediscovering Afghanistan. Below is information on each. The NEH encourages applications in these three areas of special interest. Proposals will be evaluated through NEH’s established review process and will not receive special consideration.
We the People
To help Americans make sense of their history and of the world around them, NEH established the We the People program. NEH encourages applications that explore significant events and themes in our nation’s history and culture and that advance knowledge of the principles that define America. To learn more about We the People, visit the program’s Web site.
Digital Humanities
NEH welcomes applications for humanities projects that use digital technology or study its impact. Digital technologies offer humanists new methods of conducting research, conceptualizing relationships, and presenting scholarship. Digital humanities projects deploy these technologies and methods to enhance our understanding of a topic or issue. NEH also is interested in projects that study the impact of digital technology on the humanities—exploring the ways in which it changes how we read, write, think, and learn. Learn more about the NEH Office of Digital Humanities.
Rediscovering Afghanistan
NEH invites applications for projects that focus on Afghanistan’s history and culture. The special initiative is designed to promote research, education, and public programs about Afghanistan and to encourage United States institutions to assist Afghanistan in efforts to preserve and document its cultural resources. Learn more about the initiative.
Award Information
NEH expects to award cooperative agreements of up to $400,000 each for a two-year period.
The cooperative agreement will take the form of partnership between the award recipients and NEH with technical support provided by the Library of Congress. NEH will consult with recipients on the final selection of titles, production milestones, and the evaluation of the technical specifications for the program. LC staff will verify the compliance of the digital files with the technical specifications for the program, before they are incorporated into the NDNP database. The cooperative agreement will set forth the terms and conditions between NEH and the award recipients. These include, but are not limited to an approved plan of work for:
Please see the Award Administration section for further information.
Cost sharing
Cost sharing is not required. NEH, however, is rarely able to support the full costs of projects approved for funding. In most cases, NEH awards cover no more than 80% of project costs.
(Learn more about different types of grant funding.)
Eligibility
Any U.S. nonprofit organization with IRS 501(c)(3) tax exempt status is eligible, as are state and local governmental agencies and tribal governments. Individuals are not eligible to apply.
NEH generally does not make awards to other federal entities or to applicants whose projects are so closely intertwined with a federal entity that the project takes on characteristics of the federal entity's own authorized activities. This does not preclude applicants from using grant funds from, or sites and materials controlled by, other federal entities in their projects.
Ineligible applications will not be reviewed.
How to Prepare an Application

How to Prepare your Application
Application advice and proposal drafts
Program staff recommends that draft proposals be submitted six weeks before the deadline. Time restraints may prevent staff from reviewing draft proposals submitted after that date. Staff comments are not part of the formal review process and have no bearing on the final outcome of the proposal, but previous applicants have found them helpful in strengthening their applications. To see sample narratives of funded projects, follow the links under Program Resources above.
How to prepare an application
You will prepare your application for submission via Grants.gov just as you would a paper application. [Applicants requesting continued funding should note in sections 3, 4, and 5 below the special instructions appearing in brackets.] Your application should consist of the following parts:
  1. Description of the project
    Provide a one-page abstract, describing the collections of state newspapers that are the focus of the project and explaining the project's principal activities and its expected results.
  2. Table of contents
    List all parts of the application and, beginning with the narrative, number all pages consecutively.
  3. Narrative
    Limit the narrative to twenty-five single-spaced pages. [ten for applications from continuing projects] All pages should have one-inch margins and the font size should be no smaller than eleven point. Use appendices to provide supplementary material.
    If relevant, include sample materials (such as URLs or screen shots) and statistics (the number of projects undertaken and of digitized materials) that illustrate the experience of the project’s staff in doing comparable digital conversion projects.
    Applicants should keep the review criteria (see below) in mind when writing the narrative, which must consist of the following sections:
    • History and scope of the project
      Provide a concise history of the state's newspapers, indicating the historical events that have received special attention in the state press, particularly from 1860 through 1922. Describe newspaper collections within the state and the extent to which they have been cataloged and microfilmed. Discuss past or current efforts to digitize these collections. [In this section, previous NDNP awardees should only describe the project’s work to date.]
    • Methodology and standards
      Indicate whether the applicant institution or its partner institutions have access to large quantities of master negative microfilms of the state's newspapers for the period of 1860 through 1922 and whether the film was produced to USNP microfilming guidelines. If microfilm that was not created to USNP standards is being proposed for inclusion in the project, describe the overall quality of the microfilm and its suitability for digitization (by providing any existing information about such factors as the density, resolution, reduction ratio, focus, and physical condition of the film).
      Discuss the plan for selecting newspapers published between 1860 and 1922. An advisory board of scholars, teachers, librarians, and archivists should be involved in the selection process. Selection criteria should be developed with the following principles in mind.
      Titles should reflect the political, economic, and cultural history of the state. Such newspapers usually have statewide or regional influence. Preference should be given to titles that are recognized as a “paper of record” at the state or county level and that contain published legal notices, news of state and regional governmental affairs, and announcements of community news and events. In addition, selected titles should provide state, or at least multi-county, coverage of the majority of the population areas. Newspapers that have a broad chronological span should be preferred over short runs or scattered issues in order to expand coverage in future phases of the NDNP. In addition, special consideration should be given to titles meeting these criteria that have ceased publication, lack ownership, and therefore would be less likely to be digitized by other sources. While a previously digitized newspaper normally would not be a good candidate for inclusion, applicants may justify selecting such a paper in special circumstances.
      Explain what kind of information about individual titles would be made available to the advisory committee members to allow them to select papers that reflect diverse coverage—owing to differences in readership, editorial stance, or political orientation—as well as geographical and community-size representation.
      If relevant, discuss the institution’s capacity to administer a project that involves multiple partners. Explain the role of any proposed partners and include letters from those institutions that indicate their commitment to the project.
      Describe the institution’s existing infrastructure for undertaking digital projects. State the institution's experience with large digital conversion projects, especially from microfilm, and with projects that involve serials or newspapers.
      [Previous NDNP awardees should only provide new information for Methodology and Standards, such as anticipated changes in the selection of titles or recently developed technical projects that would enhance the applicant’s participation in NDNP. ]
    • Work Plan
      Provide detailed information on the following: selection of titles and evaluation of microfilm, conversion processes, metadata creation, OCR text conversion, quality review procedures, and data delivery mechanisms. Propose a schedule for project milestones and deliverables that includes deadlines for the various stages. Awardees will be expected to make regular monthly data deliveries over the course of the award period. [Previous NDNP awardees should only provide a schedule for milestones and deliverables with deadlines.]
      Awardees will be asked to produce semi-annual project reports documenting their progress. A meeting of award recipients will be convened shortly after the cooperative agreements are announced. Attendance at an annual program meeting/workshop held in Washington will also be mandatory. Two representatives with major responsibility for the project should attend these meetings. One should be knowledgeable about the state's newspaper collections; the other should have technical experience with digitization projects.
    • Staff
      Identify the project’s staff, including consultants, advisory board members, and other technical and production staff hired for the project. Describe their duties and qualifications for the specific responsibilities assigned to them. Indicate the amount of time that the principal members of the project’s staff will devote to the project. All people directly involved in the conduct of the project, whether supported by NEH funds or by cost-sharing, must be named in the budget and their anticipated commitments of time must be indicated. [Previous NDNP awardees should use this section to discuss relevant staff changes since their projects began.]
  4. Budget
    Using the instructions, complete the budget form (PDF). While all items in the budget should be justified by the narrative, further explanation may be included in brief budget notes. [Previous NDNP awardees should provide a full budget for the new award.]
    Include a line that will cover the expenses for two representatives with major responsibility for the project to attend the initial meeting of award recipients and annual program meeting/workshop in Washington. Applicants should also budget for the expense of an LC technical representative to conduct a site visit and technical consultation during the course of the award period.
    For any outsourced work, such as digital conversion, microfilm duplication, metadata creation, or OCR text conversion, third-party contractor costs should be detailed in the budget category “Services.” Attach a complete itemization of these costs to the budget form. If there is more than one contractor, each one must be listed on the budget form and the costs itemized separately.
    To the maximum extent practical, all procurement contracts must be made through an open and free competition. They are to be awarded to the bidder or offerer or whose bid or offer is most advantageous, considering price, quality and other factors. Applicants must justify procurement contracts in excess of $100,000 that are not awarded by competitive bids or offers.
    Permanent equipment, with the exception of digital imaging systems, may be purchased for a project if an analysis demonstrates that it is the most economical and practical alternative to leasing. Applicants should include costs for delivery media and appropriate processing workstations, as needed to meet project goals. Permanent equipment is defined as nonexpendable personal property costing $5,000 or more and having a useful life of more than one year.
    Consistent with the Buy American Act (41 U.S.C. 10a-c and Public Law 105-277), grantees and sub-recipients who purchase equipment and products with grant funds should purchase only American-made equipment and products.
  5. Appendices
    Use the appendices to provide the following:
    • a comprehensive list of state newspaper titles on microfilm for the targeted dates (1860 through 1922) showing the institutions that hold the master microfilm, an indication of the relative completeness of the film files, and letters of cooperation from holding institutions;
    • representative samples (screen shots and/or URLs) and statistics of historical collections, preferably newspapers, already converted by the institution into digital form;
    • brief résumés (no longer than two pages) for staff with major responsibilities for the project’s implementation and for consultants to the project;
    • job descriptions for any additional staff who will be hired specifically to work on the project; and
    • letters of commitment from outside participants and cooperating institutions.
      [Previous NDNP awardees should only include appendices that provide updated information such as new titles, résumés, or letters from participants.]
  6. History of Awards
    If the institution has received previous support from any federal or nonfederal sources, including NEH, for digital conversion activities similar to the project for which funding is being sought, list on one page the sources, dates, and amounts of these funds. If the project has a long history of support, the sources and contributions may be grouped and summarized.
  7. Consultants and advisory board members
    List consultants to the project and members of the project's advisory board.
Register or Verify Registration with Grants.gov
Applications for this program must be submitted via Grants.gov. Before using Grants.gov for the first time, each organization must register with the Web site to create an institutional profile. Once registered, your organization can then apply for any government grant on the Grants.gov Web site.
If your organization has already registered and you have verified that your registration is still valid, you may skip this step. If not, please see our handy checklist to guide you through the registration process. We strongly recommend you complete or verify your registration at least two weeks before the application deadline, as it takes time for your registration to be processed. If you have problems registering with Grants.gov, call the Grants.gov help desk at 1-800-518-4726.
Download the Free Adobe Reader software
To fill out a Grants.gov application package, you will need to download and install the current version of Adobe Reader. The latest version of Adobe Reader, which is designed to function with PCs and Macintosh computers using a variety of popular operating systems, is available at no charge from the Adobe Web site (www.adobe.com).
Once installed, the current version of Adobe Reader will allow you to view and fill out Grants.gov application packages for any federal agency. If you have a problem installing Adobe Reader, it may be because you do not have permission to install a new program on your computer. Many organizations have rules about installing new programs. If you encounter a problem, contact your system administrator.
Download the Application Package
To submit your application, you will need to download the application package from the Grants.gov Web site. You can download the application package at any time. (You do not have to wait for your Grants.gov registration to be complete.) Click the button at the right to download the package.
Save the application package to your computer’s hard drive. To open the application package, select the file and double click. You do not have to be online to work on it.
You can save your application package at any time by clicking the “Save” button at the top of your screen. Tip: If you choose to save your application package before you have completed it, you may receive an error message indicating that your application is not valid if all of the forms have not been completed. Click “OK” to save your work and complete the package another time. You can also use e-mail to share the application package with members of your organization or project team.
The application package contains three forms that you must complete in order to submit your application:
  1. Application for Federal Domestic Assistance—Short Organizational (SF-424 Short)—this form asks for basic information about the project, the project director, and the institution.
  2. Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs—this form asks for additional information about the project director, the institution, and the budget.
  3. NEH Attachment Form—this form allows you to attach your narrative, budget, and the other parts of your application.
How to Fill Out the SF-424 Short Form
Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:
  1. Name of Federal Agency: This will be filled in automatically with “National Endowment for the Humanities.”
  2. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: This will be filled in automatically with the CFDA number and title of the NEH program to which you are applying.
  3. Date Received: Please leave blank.
  4. Funding Opportunity Number: This will be filled in automatically.
  5. Applicant Information: In this section, please supply the name, address, employer/taxpayer identification number (EIN/TIN), DUNS number, Web site address, and congressional district of the institution. Also choose the “type” that best describes your institution (you only need to select one).
    If your institution is located, for example, in the 5th Congressional District of your state, put a “5.” If your institution doesn’t have a congressional district (e.g., it is in a state or U.S. territory that doesn’t have districts or is in a foreign country), put a “0” (zero).
    All institutions applying to federal grant programs are required to provide a DUNS number, issued by Dun & Bradstreet, as part of their application. Project directors should contact their institution’s grant administrator or chief financial officer to obtain their institution’s DUNS number. Federal grant applicants can obtain a DUNS number free of charge by calling 1-866-705-5711. (Learn more about the requirement.)
  6. Project Information: Provide the title of your project. Your title should be brief, descriptive, and substantive. It should also be informative to a nonspecialist audience. Provide a brief description of your project. The description should be written for a nonspecialist audience and clearly state the importance of the proposed work and its relation to larger issues in the humanities. List the starting and ending dates for your project.
  7. Project Director: Provide the Social Security Number, name, title, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone and fax numbers for the project director.
    Disclosure of Social Security Numbers is optional. NEH uses them for internal application processing only.
  8. Primary Contact/Grants Administrator: Provide the contact information for the official responsible for the administration of the grant (i.e., negotiating the project budget and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions of the award). This person is often a grants or research officer, or a sponsored programs official. Normally, the Institutional Grants Administrator is not the same person as the Project Director. If the project director and the grants administrator are the same person, skip to Item 9.
  9. Authorized Representative: Provide the contact information for the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) who is submitting the application on behalf of the institution. This person, often called an “Authorizing Official,” is typically the president, vice president, executive director, provost, or chancellor. In order to become an AOR, the person must be designated by the institution’s E-Business Point of Contact. For more information, please consult the Grants.gov user guide, which is available at: www07.grants.gov/applicants/app_help_reso.jsp.
How to Fill Out the Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs
Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:
  1. Project Director: Use the pull-down menu to select the major field of study for the project director.
  2. Institution Information: Use the pull-down menu to select your type of institution.
  3. Project Funding: Enter your project funding information. Note that applicants for Challenge Grants should use the right column only; applicants to all other programs should use the left column only.
  4. Application Information: Indicate whether the proposal will be submitted to other NEH grant programs, government agencies, or private entities for funding. If so, please indicate where and when. NEH frequently cosponsors projects with other funding sources. Providing this information will not prejudice the review of your application.
    For Type of Application, check “new” if the application requests a new period of funding, whether for a new project or the next phase of a project previously funded by NEH. Check “supplement” if the application requests additional funding for a current NEH grant. If requesting a supplement, provide the current grant number (applicants should discuss their request with a NEH program officer before submitting such an application).
    For Project Field Code, use the pull-down menu to select the humanities field of the project. If the project is multidisciplinary, choose the field that corresponds to the project’s predominant discipline.
How to Use the NEH Attachment Form
You will use this form to attach the two files that make up your application.
Your attachments must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). We cannot accept attachments in their original word processing or spreadsheet formats. If you don’t already have software to convert your files into PDFs, there are many low-cost and free software packages available. To learn more, go to www.neh.gov/grants/grantsgov/pdf.html.
When you open the NEH Attachment Form, you will find 15 attachment buttons, labeled “Attachment 1” through “Attachment 15.” By clicking on a button, you will be able to choose the file from your computer that you wish to attach. You must name and attach your files in the proper order so that we can identify them. Please attach the proper file to the proper button as listed below:
ATTACHMENT 1: To this button, please attach your description of the project. Please name the file "projectdescription.pdf".
ATTACHMENT 2: To this button, please attach your table of contents. Please name the file "contents.pdf".
ATTACHMENT 3: To this button, please attach your narrative. Please name the file "narrative.pdf".
ATTACHMENT 4: To this button, please attach your budget. Please name the file "budget.pdf".
ATTACHMENT 5: To this button, please attach your appendices. Please name the file "appendices.pdf".
ATTACHMENT 6: To this button, please attach your history of awards. Please name the file "awardhistory.pdf".
ATTACHMENT 7: To this button, please attach your list of project consultants and advisory board members. Please name the file "consultants.pdf".
Use the remaining buttons to attach any additional materials (if appropriate). Please give these attachments meaningful file names and ensure that they are PDFs.
Uploading Your Application to Grants.gov
When you have completed all three forms, use the right-facing arrow to move each of them to the “Mandatory Documents for Submission” column. Once they have been moved over, the “Submit” button will activate. You are now ready to upload your application package to Grants.gov.
During the registration process, your institution designated one or more AORs (Authorized Organization Representatives). These AORs typically work in your institution’s Sponsored Research Office or Grants Office. When you have completed your application, you must ask your AOR to submit the application, using the special username and password that was assigned to him or her during the registration process.
To submit your application, your computer must have an active connection to the Internet. To begin the submission process, click the “submit” button. A page will appear asking you to sign and submit your application. At this point, your AOR will enter his or her username and password. When you click the “sign and submit application” button, your application package will be uploaded to Grants.gov. Please note that it may take some time to upload your application package depending on the size of your files and the speed of your Internet connection.
After the upload is complete, a confirmation page, which includes a tracking number, will appear indicating that you have submitted your application to Grants.gov. Please print this page for your records. The AOR will also receive a confirmation e-mail.
NEH suggests that you submit your application no later than 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) on the day of the deadline. That way, should you encounter a technical problem of some kind, you will still have time to contact the Grants.gov help desk for support. The Grants.gov help desk is open Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) at 1-800-518-4726. You can also send an e-mail to support@grants.gov.
HOW TO SUBMIT SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
If you are sending supplementary materials (those that cannot be scanned and converted to an electronic form and submitted via Grants.gov), please send 8 copies of each item and include a list of these supplementary materials in the application's table of contents with an indication that these have been mailed separately. Mail the materials to:
National Digital Newspaper Program
Division of Preservation and Access
Room 411
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20506
NEH continues to experience lengthy delays in the delivery of mail by the U.S. Postal Service, and in some cases materials are damaged by the irradiation process. We recommend that supplementary materials be sent by a commercial delivery service to ensure that they arrive intact by the receipt deadline.
Deadlines
Draft Proposals (optional): Program staff recommends that draft proposals be submitted six weeks before the deadline. Time constraints may prevent staff from reviewing draft proposals submitted after that date.
Applications must be received by Grants.gov by by November 4, 2008. Grants.gov will date- and time-stamp your application after it is fully uploaded. Late applications will not be reviewed.
Supplementary materials must also arrive at NEH by November 4, 2008, to be considered as part of the application.
Application Review
Evaluators are asked to apply the following criteria in assessing applications:
  • the applicant's access to master negative microfilm of state newspapers for titles published between 1836 and 1922, and especially for the period 1860-1922;
  • the institution's infrastructure for undertaking digital projects and its experience with digital conversion activities, particularly with microfilm conversion or with conversion of serials and newspapers;
  • the institution's successful experience in collaborative digital conversion projects;
  • the viability of the plan and proposed schedule to meet the technical specifications defined by LC for selection, conversion, metadata creation, and OCR text conversion;
  • the professional training and experience of the staff in relation to the activities for which support is requested; and
  • the appropriateness of the project's budget, including documentation of third-party quotations for specific types of services.
The amount of cost sharing is not a criterion for review.
Late applications will not be reviewed.
Review and Selection Process
Knowledgeable persons outside NEH will read each application and advise the agency about its merits. The Endowment’s staff comments on matters of fact or on significant issues that otherwise would be missing from these reviews, then makes recommendations to the National Council on the Humanities. The National Council meets at various times during the year to advise the NEH chairman on grants. The chairman takes into account the advice provided by the review process and, by law, makes all funding decisions.
Award Administration Information
Award notices
Applicants will be notified by mail in July 2009 of the decision. Institutional grants administrators and project directors of successful applications will also receive at that time award documents by mail. Applicants may obtain the reasons for funding decisions on their applications by sending a letter or e-mail to NEH, Division of Preservation and Access, Room 411, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506 or preservation@neh.gov.

Administrative requirements
Before submitting an application, applicants should review their responsibilities as an award recipient and the lobbying certification requirement.
Award Conditions
The requirements for awards are contained in the General Terms and Conditions for Awards to Organizations, any specific terms and conditions contained in the award document, and the applicable OMB circulars governing federal grants management.
The specific terms and conditions contained in the award document will require award recipients to:
  • establish an advisory board responsible for applying selection criteria to state newspaper titles published between 1860 and 1922 for digitization;
  • attend an initial and subsequent annual meeting of NDNP participants in Washington, D.C.;
  • provide the following deliverables according to NEH and LC specifications within established deadlines. These include:
    1. list of the newspapers selected for the project containing information about the title, geographic and chronological coverage, and LCCN;
    2. a technical analysis of available microfilm for optimal scanning of the selected titles (the format of analysis provided in the technical specifications);
    3. a production schedule with agreed-upon timetable for sample and final files;
    4. a sample of digital assets that includes TIFF, OCR output, PDF, JP2, and metadata delivered to LC within six months of the beginning of the project;
    5. twenty-five percent of the total number of pages to be scanned during the life of the project delivered to LC no later than June 30, 2010;
    6. the final digital assets (TIFF, OCR output, PDF, JP2, and metadata) for all the pages delivered to LC in conformance with the program's technical guidelines by the end of the award period;
    7. a summary description (a maximum of 500 words) of the scope, content, and significance of each digitized newspaper title;
    8. updating of CONSER records to include links (in the MARC 856 field) to digital newspapers in the state (born-digital or retrospective conversion), for inclusion in the directory, and
    9. the copy of the microfilm used for scanning, for deposit at LC.
The Library of Congress will verify that all digital files created comply with the NDNP specifications before they are incorporated into the NDNP database. The required sample (see item d) must be approved by LC before awardees continue to digitize remaining titles. The cooperative agreement between NEH and the award recipients will set forth the terms, conditions, and expected deliverables.
Reporting Requirements
A schedule of report due dates will be included with the award document.
Interim and final performance reports will be required. Further details can be found in Performance Reporting Requirements (formerly Enclosure 2).
A Federal Cash Transactions Report (2-page PDF) will be due within 30 days after the end of each calendar quarter. A final Financial Status Report (2-page PDF) will be due within 90 days after the completion date of the award period. Further details can be found in Financial Reporting Requirements (formerly Enclosure 1).
Points of Contact
If you have questions about the program, contact:
National Digital Newspaper Program
Division of Preservation and Access
Room 411
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20506
202-606-8570
The technical documentation for this program is located on the Library of Congress' Web site at: http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/
If you need help using Grants.gov, contact
Grants.gov: http://www.grants.gov
Grants.gov help desk: support@grants.gov
Grants.gov customer support tutorials and manuals : http://www.grants.gov/CustomerSupport
Grant.gov support line: 1-800-518-GRANTS (4726)
Other Information
Privacy Policy
Information in these guidelines is solicited under the authority of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 956. The principal purpose for which the information will be used is to process the grant application. The information may also be used for statistical research, analysis of trends, and Congressional oversight. Failure to provide the information may result in the delay or rejection of the application.
Application Completion Time
The Office of Management and Budget requires federal agencies to supply information on the time needed to complete forms and also to invite comments on the paperwork burden. NEH estimates the average time to complete this application is fifteen hours per response. This estimate includes time for reviewing instructions, researching, gathering, and maintaining the information needed, and completing and reviewing the application.
Please send any comments regarding the estimated completion time or any other aspect of this application, including suggestions for reducing the completion time, to the Office of Publications, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C. 20506; and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (3136-0134), Washington, D.C. 20503. According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB number.