(Image courtesy of the Washington State Library.)

We are pleased to announce that the State Library has received an extension of funding from the National Digital Newspaper Program to continue digitizing historical newspapers through 2014.  The NDNP is a collaborative grant program between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.  The Chronicling America project covers all newspapers in the public domain in all U.S. states and territories, approximately from 1836-1922.  Select titles are available through the Chronicling America website.  Washington State has participated in the program since 2008.

Shawn Schollmeyer, who manages the newspaper digitizing project for the State Library,  says, “The Washington State Library will coordinate scanning and prepping another 100,000 pages from microfilm for remaining titles in Seattle and Olympia. A panel of partner libraries across the state has preselected more than 25 titles representing large and small communities and historically significant regions to share on the Chronicling America site. Among  the titles already available are  the Aberdeen Herald, Colfax Gazette, Lynden Tribune, San Juan Islander, and Tacoma Times.” Shawn said the Wenatchee Daily World and (Everett) Labor Journal just became available.

One of our student workers, Ashley Fejeran from the University of Washington, is assisting with this project. Here is a blog post, written by Ashley and State Librarian Rand Simmons, about how this project is affecting both Ashley’s personal and professional life.