The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is continuing its popular newspaper microfilm digitization program this year, and is again looking to public libraries in the state to nominate papers from their communities to be digitized. To date, over 30 institutions have suggested titles to be added to the Newspapers collection on digitalnc.org: http://digitalnc.org/collections/newspapers.
This year we will continue to focus our efforts on newspapers from the 20th century, especially those that cover North Carolina during the Great Depression, World Wars I and II, and the Civil Rights era.
The Digital Heritage Center is committed to documenting the cultural and geographic diversity in our state and will be especially interested in working with libraries or communities whose collections are not already represented on DigitalNC.org.
Please contact the Digital Heritage Center at digitalnc@unc.edu or 919-962-4836 with any questions or nominations. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions and working with you over the next year and beyond to share these important materials online. We’ll be taking nominations now through the end of 2015.
Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm, 2015
Titles to be digitized will be selected using the following criteria:
- Does the newspaper document traditionally underrepresented regions or communities?
- Does the newspaper include coverage of significant statewide or national events?
- Does the newspaper include significant coverage of the local community?
- Are the images of the pages on microfilm legible, or are there significant sections where it is difficult to read the text?
- If the newspaper is still being published, has the library obtained permission from the current publisher to digitize older issues and make them freely available online?
- Is there a demonstrated demand for online access to this paper?
- If the newspaper is digitized, will the nominating library promote the digital project through programs and announcements?
- Was the paper filmed by the North Carolina Department of Archives and History?
