United States Newspaper Program
The United States Newspaper Program (USNP) is a unique and highly successful collaboration between the Library of Congress (LC) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund and coordinate a national effort to identify, describe, and preserve the newspapers of the United States and its territories. Since 1985, NEH and LC have worked together to establish projects in each state and territory and to train and equip staff in those projects to catalog and preserve newspapers held in libraries, archives, publishers' offices, local historical societies, churches and ethnic organizations, and private collections.
Finding History Where it Happened
Photo courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
Newspapers are arguably the single most important research source for social
and cultural history, but their value extends well beyond the academy. As
the first-hand and often only account of local news, they are a primary source
of information for ethnic and regional studies and for family history and
genealogy. The role of newspapers in the development and expansion of the
United States, often as the first operating business in a town, has been
made familiar to us through countless films and television programs on the "taming" of
the West. Newspapers are unique sources for under-standing history because
they provide, not only the record of an event, but also, through accompanying
stories and advertising, a sense of place and time in which to better understand
the event.
Ironically, for those who publish newspapers, and most who read them, they are meant to be disposable, to be tossed aside. Yesterday is old news already. Newsprint is susceptible to damage from sunlight, heat, dampness, and airborne pollutants. Newspapers, by design, are simply not intended to last. For libraries, archives, and historical societies that wish to allow continued access to their newspaper collections for research, the most secure and economical option is to preserve the intellectual content of the newspapers through reformatting onto microfilm in accordance with strict preservation standards.
Why microfilm?
Emerging digital technologies provide tremendous new opportunities for getting information in ways not practical (if even conceivable) twenty years ago. Imagine, for example, the chance to build an electronic "clipping file" from the entire back run of The New York Times. Yet questions about scalability, storage, and migration of the huge amounts of data for long-term access remain unanswered. Preservation questions for the most part, have been answered with regard to preserving newspapers on microfilm. The Library of Congress has been microfilming newspapers since the late 1930's and has been a participant in the development and refinement of national and international preservation microfilming standards since that time. We are confident that microfilm which is produced, processed, and stored in adherence to national and international standards will serve researchers well into the century and beyond. With the proven ability to capture quality digital images from the microfilm, we can proceed with the knowledge that we are securing access to these newspapers, not only for the future, but for uses in the future that we may not foresee today.
The Benefits of Federal-State Cooperation
Through a coordinated effort, which provides continuing management and consultation to state projects for the duration of their grant-funded activity, the USNP has been able to assure that all appropriate standards and practices are employed in accomplishing the mission of the program. In addition, by training and equipping staff in each state, there is assurance that preservation activities can continue beyond the term of the grant-funded project. The USNP has supported projects in each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
How are projects organized?
USNP projects are organized as cooperative efforts within each state, generally with one agency serving as the project manager. Microfilm copies of newspapers are held by research institutions in the participating states and are available to researchers anywhere in the country through interlibrary loan. Bibliographic and holdings records are entered into a national database maintained by the Online Computer Library Center(OCLC) and are accessible throughout the world via OLC's WorldCat service, available through most libraries and through the World Wide Web at the following site: http://www.oclc.org/oclc/union/usnp.htm
How many newspapers are there?
Lots. Librarians base their statistics on the number of individual catalog titles. Thus a minor variation in title will not be recognized as significant, but a major change will be treated as a new title even though the actual newspaper will be the same. Tracking these variations - a sort of newspaper genealogy - is the major work of the catalogers. However, we are willing to make some predictions based on work completed. Barring any major disruption in funding, current projections call for funded activity under the USNP to be completed by 2006, at which time project staff will have cataloged nearly 200,000 newspaper titles and produced microfilm of more than 60 million pages of newsprint.
Photo
courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
For additional information about the United States Newspaper Program, contact:
USNP Coordinator
Preservation Directorate
Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, D.C. 20540-4500
Online form: Ask
a Librarian.
Web site: www.loc.gov/preserv/
Division of Preservation and Access
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Room 411
Washington, DC 20506
E-mail: preservation@neh.fed.us
Web site: www.neh.gov/projects/usnp.html