Does your local library, historical society, or genealogy club want to digitize your Indiana community’s newspapers? Does the prospect seem overwhelming? Or perhaps you just don’t know where to start.
If so, have no worries! The Indiana State Library staff would be happy to talk to you individually or present a public program about newspaper digitization best practices, and how the State Library could help.
My colleague, Connie, and I recently visited the Northwest Indiana Times in Munster (formerly Lake County Times, and Hammond Times) to discuss our newspaper digitization efforts, and to answer some of their questions about digitizing their newspaper. You can read about our visit here: Indiana working to digitize historic newspapers : Munster Community News.
We are excited to blog that the Newspaper button on Indiana Memory is LIVE! Clicking on the button will take you to all of the newspapers we have digitized as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program plus a few more. The content is being displayed in Veridian software, which is really exciting because users like you can correct the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) text.
If you researched with any digitized content in the past, you may have discovered that the search results you received were often only as good as the OCR. The crowd-sourcing component of Veridian allows you to register and make corrections to the OCR. For instance, if you find an individual’s name garbled in the OCR, you can correct it yourself, so that future users can find that person’s name in the newspapers easier.
The Library of Congress recently ingested another 12,533 pages of Indiana newspapers into Chronicling America! This brings the total number of Indiana newspaper pages in ChronAm to over 80,000! The Indiana State Library staff are digitizing these newspapers as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program.
A few years ago the Indiana State Library awarded a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Putnam County Public Library, DePauw University Libraries and the Greencastle Banner Graphic to digitize Greencastle newspapers. The organizations launched their archive of Greencastle newspapers in May 2012. Unfortunately, those newspapers have been inaccessible the last few months because of some server issues.
The good news is that they recently migrated most of the content to the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana’s (PALNI) Digital Collections, and the content can now be accessed here. AUGUST 2015 UPDATE: We are in the process of migrating the Greencastle content from the PALNI digital collections into Hoosier State Chronicles. We should have most of the issues migrated by the end of 2015. When it is done there will be around 14,450 issues, and nearly a hundred years worth of Greencastle newspapers from 1880-1979.
As of this update [May 1, 2017], these are the issues we currently have migrated into Hoosier State Chronicles:
We will give updates on newly migrated Greencastle content in future blog entries (so be sure to subscribe to our blog, or follow us on Twitter @HS_Chronicles ), or you can just click through and find an up-to-date list here.
The Library of Congress recently updated Chronicling America, and the following new Indiana newspaper content is now available: Brookville American, 1858-1860; Indiana American, 1853-1857; Indiana State Sentinel(weekly edition), 1875-78, 82-89, 92-94; and more issues of the Wabash Express, 1860-1861.
If you are a regular user of Indiana newspapers on Chronicling America, you may notice that several Plymouth newspapers have disappeared from the site. Those newspapers have been temporarily purged, but they should be restored within a week.
These additions will bring the total number of Indiana newspaper pages on Chronicling America to over 70,000. Happy searching!
The News began publication in 1869 as a Republican leaning, although officially independent, newspaper. Its circulations outpaced its long-time rivals the Sentinel and the Journal by the late 19th and early 20th century. The News consolidated with the Star in 1948, but continued to be issued as a separate title. The News ceased publication in 1999.
Last week a co-worker and I attended the National Digital Newspaper Project Awardee Conference in DC. One of our fellow NDNP awardees from Arizona wrote about her experiences at the conference.
The following is a news release from the Library of Congress about new grant awards for the upcoming two years, including more Indiana newspapers! Historic newspapers slated to be added in the coming two years include more issues of the Indianapolis Journal and the Indiana Tribüne, that we were unable to incorporate during the first grant. In addition, the Western Sun, published in Vincennes, Indiana, will be included in the project. The Sun has a long history in Indiana; it has been in continuous publication, despite turnovers in ownership and name changes, since it was started on July 4, 1807.
NEH Announces $3.5 Million for 2013 NDNP Awards, including Participation by 4 New States and Territories
July 29, 2013
Recently the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced 14 awards totaling $3.5 million to institutions representing their states or territories in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Three projects – sponsored by the Connecticut State Library; the Idaho State Historical Society; and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History – are new to the program this year. The University of Florida returns to NDNP, partnered with a new NDNP participant, the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, to digitize newspapers from both locations. Ten other institutions – University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Indiana State Library; Kansas State Historical Society; Louisiana State University Libraries; Montana Historical Society; State Historical Society of North Dakota; Oklahoma Historical Society; University of Oregon Libraries; University of South Carolina; and West Virginia University Research Corporation – have received continuing awards to contribute additional content to the program.
This funding will support the selection and digitization of historic American newspapers published between 1836 and 1922 by each participating state, according to NDNP technical guidelines. The Library of Congress (LC) will make these newspapers freely available through the Chronicling America Website (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) beginning in mid-2014. In all, 37 states and territories have participated in the program.
NDNP, a partnership between the NEH and the LC, is a long-term effort to provide an Internet-based, searchable database of all U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages. Supported by NEH, this rich digital resource will be developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress. The NEH grant program will fund the contribution of content from, eventually, all U.S. states and territories…. Read more about it!
Since the NDNP’s project beginnings, nearly seven years ago, the Library of Congress could not accept German-printed newspapers because the font type commonly used during the 19th and 20th centuries (Fraktur) represented significant challenges when conducting Optical Character Recognition (OCR). (OCR allows the end-user the ability to research digitally-created newspapers with advanced word-search engines.) Fortunately, OCR software and technology have made significant advances over the years and now allow Fraktur font-based German newspapers’ a unique opportunity for ingestion by the Library of Congress.
Seit der NDNP das Projekt Anfängen vor fast sieben Jahren, konnte die Library of Congress nicht akzeptieren deutschen gedruckten Zeitungen, weil die Schriftart häufig während des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Fraktur) verwendet vertreten erheblichen Herausforderungen bei der Durchführung von Optical Character Recognition (OCR). (OCR ermöglicht dem Endbenutzer die Möglichkeit, digital erzeugte Zeitungen mit fortgeschrittenen Wort-Suchmaschinen recherchieren.) Glücklicherweise OCR Software und Technologie wurden bedeutende Fortschritte im Laufe der Jahre gemacht und erlauben nun Fraktur font-basierten deutschen Zeitungen “eine einzigartige Gelegenheit für Verschlucken von der Library of Congress.
The Indiana State Library, realizing the importance of digitally preserving Indiana German newspapers, immediately selected the Indiana Tribüne to be digitized, OCR’ed and sent to Chronicling America.
Die Indiana State Library, erkennen die Bedeutung von digital Erhaltung Indiana deutschen Zeitungen, sofort wählte die Indiana Tribune zu digitalisieren, OCR’ed und schließlich an Chronik Amerika.
“The importance of foreign language newspapers and other publications printed for ethnic groups in the US is two-fold: on the one hand, they tell us a great deal about the ethnic group itself, but, on the other hand, they tell us perhaps even more about the development of American social and cultural life in general.”
“With easier access to these documents (often ignored in research because of their inaccessibility) historians will have the ability to gain new and more accurate perspectives on life in this country. The digitization of the Indiana Tribüne will help provide those perspectives.” Giles R. Hoyt, Ph.D., Professor emeritus, Director emeritus, IUPUI Max Kade German-American Center
“Die Bedeutung der fremdsprachigen Zeitungen und andere Publikationen für ethnische Gruppen in den USA gedruckt ist zweierlei: auf der einen Seite, sie sagen uns viel über die ethnische Gruppe selbst, sondern auf der anderen Seite, sie uns zu sagen, vielleicht noch mehr über die Entwicklung des amerikanischen sozialen und kulturellen Leben im Allgemeinen. “
“Mit leichteren Zugang zu diesen Dokumenten (oft in der Forschung wegen ihrer Unzugänglichkeit ignoriert) Historiker haben die Möglichkeit, neue und genauere Perspektiven auf das Leben in diesem Land zu gewinnen. Die Digitalisierung der Indiana Tribüne wird dazu beitragen, diese Perspektiven.” Giles R . Hoyt, Ph.D., Professor emeritus, Direktor emeritus, IUPUI Max Kade German-American Center
