WA Secretary of State Blogs

State Library Contributes 23 Newspaper Titles to Chronicling America

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 Posted in Articles, Digital Collections, For Libraries, For the Public | Comments Off on State Library Contributes 23 Newspaper Titles to Chronicling America


The Washington State Library recently contributed another 23,000 historic newspaper pages from seven newspapers to Chronicling America, making Washington State’s contribution to the program a total of 23 titles and over 115,000 pages. Read and research issues from these and other newspapers around the U.S. for free at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

100 years ago. Seattle Star, September 24, 2010

100 years ago. Seattle Star, September 24, 2010

There are now 23 newspapers from Washington State currently included in Chronicling America:  

Chronicling America provides free and open access to nearly 2.7 million full-text searchable pages from 348 titles published between 1860 and 1922 in 22 states and the District of Columbia. The Washington State Library’s National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant was renewed through June 2012, allowing more pages from other newspapers around Washington State to be uploaded over the next two years. 

For more information about Chronicling America, contact Laura Robinson, project manager for Washington’s National Digital Newspaper Program, at [email protected] or (360) 570-5568.

Washington Adds 50,000 Newspaper Pages to Chronicling America

Thursday, June 24th, 2010 Posted in Articles, Digital Collections, For Libraries, For the Public | 1 Comment »


The Washington State Library recently contributed another 50,000 historic newspaper pages from nine newspapers to Chronicling America, making Washington State’s contribution to the program a total of 16 titles and 92,000 pages. People can read and research issues from these and other newspapers around the U.S. for free at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

100 Years Ago... Tacoma Times from June 24, 1910

100 Years Ago. Tacoma Times, June 24, 1910

There are now 16 newspapers from Washington State currently included in Chronicling America:

Chronicling America provides free and open access to more than 2.3 million full-text searchable pages from 295 titles published between 1860 and 1922 in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The Washington State Library’s National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant was recently renewed through June of 2012, allowing more pages from other newspapers around Washington State to be uploaded over the next two years.

For more information about Chronicling America, contact Laura Robinson, project manager for Washington’s National Digital Newspaper Program, at [email protected] or (360) 570-5568.

Media Clips: Libraries – September 04, 2009

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 Posted in For Libraries, For the Public, News, Updates | Comments Off on Media Clips: Libraries – September 04, 2009


These media mentions are compiled by Brian Zylstra, Deputy Communications Director for the Office of the Secretary of State, and passed along to us.

The following links cover Media Clips provided August 06, 2009 – September 04, 2009.

Children’s Literature 101: How to peruse your library’s collection at home? (Examiner.com)

Ritzville residents submit first entry in Carnegie library state tour (Ritzville Journal, August 6)

Library groundbreaking to open next chapter for Vancouver (Columbian)

Castle Rock library levy too close to call (Longview Daily News)

‘Hungry Monkey’ author at Ballard branch of Seattle Public Library (Seattle Times)

Voters OK Columbia County library measure (Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, August 19)

CR library levy appears to have passed (Longview Daily News)

Budget gap to shut down Seattle libraries for a week (The Big Blog/Seattle P-I)

Library seeks to replace retiring director (Olympian)

Seattle libraries close, city employees furloughed (AP/Seattle Times)

Seattle is shrewdly minimizing budget pain for library patrons (Seattle Times editorial)

“Wayfinder” aims to connect Washington libraries’ millions of items (Tacoma Daily Index)

Did we miss a big library story from your area? Let us know!

For more library news, check out our other postings under News and Updates.

Newspapers in the Library

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 Posted in Articles, Institutional Library Services | Comments Off on Newspapers in the Library


I recently did a post on the loss of the “Spokesman Review”, however, I am happy to report that we still have many newspapers in the library to provide a touch of home for our patrons. As newspapers can be very expensive we cannot purchase all of them that are published in Washington, but we do our best. To that end we carry the larger metropolitan areas (excluding Spokane). This includes Olympia, Seattle, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Everett, Tacoma, Wenatchee, Vancouver, and usually the local paper for the area the prison is located.

All of these cities are still mailing out their newspapers and I hope they continue. If they don’t, the inmates will lose one of the few touches of home that is still available to them. Newspapers not only provide news of their local areas, but also a connection to a community. This connection can provide listings for jobs and housing which is important for the inmates releasing back into society, but it also provides the stories that make it a community.

Since local news is not the only interest of our patrons, we also carry newspapers that appeal to different cultures and lifestyles. To meet these needs we carry El Mundo, La Opinión, Smoke Signals, Indian Country Today, and Seattle Gay News.

The wave of the future may be the Internet, but here’s to hoping that some things remain in print.