Newspaper Digitization: "Ohio Historical Society Receives National Grant to Preserve Historic Ohio Newspapers"

From the Urbana Daily Citizen:

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has given $334,000 to the Ohio Historical Society to continue its digitization of Ohio’s microfilmed newspapers.

The National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio, a part of the National Digital Newspaper Program developed by NEH and the Library of Congress, will digitize 26 Ohio newspapers—more than 100,000 pages—between the years of 1845 and 1894, with an emphasis on the Civil War era. This grant effort is one of only 25 projects around the nation participating in the national effort to digitize America’s historic newspapers.

Ohio newspapers digitized as part of the two-year project will be included in the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America database at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. From 2008-2010, 14 historic papers selected from 10 regions around the state were digitized and have been uploaded online and are fully text searchable.

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The National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio is building upon an earlier NEH initiative, the United States Newspaper Program, which enabled the society to locate, catalog and microfilm Ohio’s newspapers. As a result, the society holds the most complete Ohio newspaper microfilm collection in the state comprising some 48,000 rolls.

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An advisory group of 18 journalists, historians, educators, scholars, librarians and archivists selected the titles to be digitized. Ten members represent regional interests: Steve Charter, of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green; Tom Neel of the Ohio Genealogical Society Library in Bellville; John Vacha of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland; Bill Lawson of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society in Youngstown; Kimberly Kenney of the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum in Canton; Susan Allen of the Worthington Public Library in Worthington; Jane Wildermuth of Wright State University in Dayton; Greg Edwards of the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County in Cincinnati; Janet Carleton of Ohio University in Athens; and Ernest Thode of the Washington County Public Library in Marietta.

At least one paper was selected from each of 10 districts around the state. Titles chosen for this round include: Perrysburg Journal from Perrysburg, (1854-1880); Hancock Jeffersonian from Findlay (1857-1878); Fremont Journal from Fremont (1853-1875); Tiffin Tribune from Tiffin (1856-1879); Cleveland Leader from Cleveland (1858-1866); Western Reserve Chronicle from Warren (1855-1871); Jeffersonian Democrat from Chardon (1859-1865); Ashtabula Telegraph from Ashtabula (1858-1880); Anti-Slavery Bugle from New-Lisbon & Salem (1845-1861); Holmes County Farmer from Millersburg (1860-1866); Holmes County Republican from Millersburg (1856-1862, 1870-1874); Stark County Democrat from Canton (1868-1890); Daily Ohio Statesman from Columbus (1861-1868); Dayton Daily Empire from Dayton (1859-1867); Urbana Union from Urbana (1862-1872); Xenia Sentinel from Xenia (1863-1865); Highland Weekly News from Hillsboro (1857-1886); Cincinnati Daily Press from Cincinnati (1859-1862);Gallipolis Journal from Gallipolis (1850-1880), McArthur Democrat (1855-1865), Vinton Record (1866-1874), Democratic Enquirer (1867-1873) and McArthur Enquirer (1873-1884) from McArthur; Conservative and South-eastern Independent from McConnelsville (1866-1871); and the Belmont Chronicle from St. Clairsville (1853-1894).

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Filed under: Digital Preservation, Funding, Journal Articles, Libraries, News, Public Libraries, Resources