The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP)

The National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to provide permanent access to a national digital resource of newspaper bibliographic information and historic newspapers, selected and digitized by NEH-funded institutions (awardees) from all U.S. states and territories. This program builds on the legacy of the strategically successful United States Newspaper Program (external link) (USNP, 1982-2011), a project sponsored by the NEH with technical support from LC which organized the inventory, cataloging, and selective preservation on microfilm of a corpus of at-risk newspaper materials. The NDNP extends the usefulness of the USNP bibliographic and microfilm assets by increasing access to this valuable information and provides an opportunity for institutions to select and contribute digitized newspaper content, to a freely accessible, national newspaper resource.

In 2003, LC and NEH established a formal agreement that identified goals for the program, institutional responsibilities, and overall support. In 2004, the NEH announced guidelines for annual cycles of two-year NDNP awards to enhance the study of American history. These awards enable cultural heritage institutions to join the NDNP for the purpose of selecting, digitizing, and delivering to the LC approximately 100,000 newspaper pages per award.  Since 2005, the NEH has awarded grants to state libraries, historical societies, and universities representing states in the national program, with many more states and territories to be included in the coming years. The digitized pages are made available through the Chronicling America website.

Participation in the NDNP

Institutions wishing to participate in the NDNP should consult the NEH Application Guidelines (external link) for information regarding the NEH’s annual solicitation of proposals for participation in the program; the guidelines for the annual award competition are issued in August.  Program questions should be directed to the NEH’s Division of Preservation and Access at 202-606-8570 or [email protected]. Hearing-impaired applicants can contact NEH via TDD at 1-866-372-2930. Technical questions should be directed to the Library of Congress at [email protected].

Last Updated: 03/14/2019