Library Stuff

“ProQuest is significantly expanding its rich selection of historical news content as the global distributor to libraries and other institutions for NewspaperARCHIVE.com, a 130 million-page database that captures coverage from valuable local newspapers throughout North America, the U.K., and select countries from 1607 to the present. ProQuest will offer libraries the option to purchase a perpetual archive rather than just subscriptions. Further, there will be Academic and Public library versions that break NewspaperARCHIVE.com’s massive content into state level products and individual titles.”

via ProQuestPress Release

“The challenge of the internet means these are uncertain times for anyone who loves newspapers. But industries in flux can be more open to innovation. On both sides of the Atlantic, papers are placing their faith in ebooks. The New York Times recently teamed up with startups Vook, to publish archive material (sample titles include reports on the Rwandan genocide and a book of asparagus recipes), and Byliner, to publish original “long-form” journalism (sample title: Here’s the Deal: How Washington Can Solve the Deficit and Spur Growth by columnist David Leonhardt). Byliner sold more than 1m singles last year, so the New York Times is tapping into a growing market.”

via The Observer

“For alumni, current and former faculty and staff and others with a connection to Eastern Kentucky University, memory lane is now just a mouse click away. EKU Libraries boasts a growing digital repository of the student-produced campus newspaper, The Eastern Progress, as well as the campus yearbook, the Milestone, all easily viewable, fully searchable and free, by anyone with Internet access. While digital content for the Progress has always been available for issues published since 2009, generous donations from members of The Friends of EKU Libraries have enabled the digitization of all extant copies of the Eastern Progress from 1922 to 1963. It is expected that the digital collection will expand to 1975 by mid-March, with the goal of collecting the funding needed to digitize the remaining collection this year.”

via The Richmond Register

“The Chronicling America website, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, a free, searchable database of historic U.S. newspapers, has posted its 5 millionth page. Launched by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 2007, Chronicling America provides enhanced and permanent access to historically significant newspapers published in the United States between 1836 and 1922. It is a part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a joint effort between the two agencies and 32 state partners. “This magnificent resource captures the warp and weft of life as it was lived in grassroots America,” said NEH Chairman Jim Leach. “Metropolitan newspapers were early targets for digitization, but Chronicling America allows the journalism of the smaller cities and the rural countryside to become accessible in all its variety—and sometimes, quirkiness.”

via Library of Congress

“The State Historical Society of Missouri has been awarded a $74,623 grant to digitize several Civil-War era Missouri newspapers. Now, the newspapers, dating from 1854 to 1876, are on microfilm and available for public viewing at the historical society, which is on Lowry Mall at MU. The digitized versions will be freely available as part of the online Missouri Digital Newspaper Project. They will also be featured on the historical society’s American Civil War in Missouri website.”

via Columbia Missourian

Tennessee Department of State Press Releases – “For more than 100 years the Tennessee State Library and Archives has been collecting and microfilming historical newspapers. Now through the Chronicling America project, selected papers from cities and towns across the state are being converted to digital format and made available for free searching online. Thanks to a recent partnership with the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Tennessee, dozens of Tennessee newspaper titles have been scanned, indexed, and posted on the Internet. The focus is on papers from the Civil War era. All three of the state’s grand divisions are represented, with available newspapers from towns as small as Athens and as large as Memphis. More than 60,000 pages of Tennessee newspapers dating from 1850 to 1876 are now online.”

NPR – “The state of Tennessee is helping residents avoid paying for old newspaper articles. The state library has started keeping five years of archived stories available for free online. The state didn’t strike agreements with the four largest daily papers. In fact, some of them, including The Tennessean, didn’t know their archives were going to be opened up. The paper typically charges a fee for online access to stories more than a few weeks old.”

AP – “A project by the libraries at the University of South Carolina has taken 19 newspapers from across the state and made editions between 1860 and 1922 available on a website. A National Endowment for the Humanities grant is paying for the South Carolina Digital Newspaper Program. USC Libraries Dean Tom McNally says the old newspapers help the history of communities come alive.”

Daily Herald – “Save the newspapers!

It sounds a little self-serving, sure, but even in the Internet age, newspapers may be good for more than lining a litter box and wrapping fish.

What newspapers and other traditional media do, said BYU law professor RonNell Andersen Jones, is combine a passion for open government and public access with the resources to go after the government for the enactment and enforcement of those laws.”

Reuters – “News Corp will start charging for content for its British newspapers on the Web in the next weeks or months, the head of its European and Asian operations James Murdoch said on Wednesday.”