Six institutions given grants to digitize newspapers

Someone mentioned this yesterday and -- lo and beyond -- I checked Bloglines today and find the information!

In order to increase access to older newspapers, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress have announced that six institutions have received more than $1.9 million in grants in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). This program is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers that are now in the public domain. The six institutions are (along with their grant amounts):

• University of California, Riverside, $400,000
• University of Florida Libraries, Gainesville, $320,959
• University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington, $310,000
• New York Public Library, New York City, $351,500
• University of Utah, Salt Lake City, $352,693
• Library of Virginia, Richmond, $201,226

Over two years, each will digitize 100,000 or more pages of its state most historically significant newspapers published between 1900 and 1910. The completed work will be made available through the Library of Congress's web site.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, "We hope the National Digital Newspaper Program inspires other institutions to make their public domain newspapers accessible online." That's a nice sentiment, but I hope those "other institutions" have the money to make his dream a reality.