April 22, 1998

Contact:
Press Contact: Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217

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Media Advisory: National Digital Library Competition Winners to Be Announced

Announcements to Be Made During Telephone News Conference

WHEN: Tuesday, April 28, at 2 p.m. EDT; 1 pm. CDT;
12 p.m. MDT; and 11 a.m. PDT.

WHO: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress Lana Porter, President, Ameritech Library Services George Farr, Director of the Division of Preservation and Access, National Endowment for the Humanities

WHAT: Announcement of the second round of winners in the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition, which enables libraries across the nation to digitize their collections in American history and make them available on the Internet via the Library's site on the World Wide Web (http://www.loc.gov/).

HOW: A telephone news conference will be held at the above time. To participate, reporters should call 1-800-749-9805; Host: Lana Porter.

BACKGROUND

A $2 million gift from the Ameritech Foundation (http://www.ameritech.com) to the Library of Congress is enabling U.S. institutions to apply for awards to digitize their unique collections in American history and -- for the first time -- make them a part of the Library's on-line collections, called American Memory.

This is the second year of a three-year program (details of the final competition in 1998-99 will be announced this summer). The winners are institutions both large and small from across the United States. Their collections to be placed on-line represent a diversity of subjects in American history.

The National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress aims to make freely available over the Internet millions of items by the year 2000, in collaboration with other institutions. Ameritech's gift helps the Library meet that goal by providing funds to libraries, museums, archives and historical societies to aid them in the critical, yet expensive, task of making their unique collections available to anyone with access to the World Wide Web.

 

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PR 98-067
4/22/98
ISSN 0731-3527