NCPedia and the N.C. Government and Heritage Library, in cooperation with the University of North Carolina Press, now make the entirety of “The North Carolina Gazetteer” available online through NCPedia at www.ncpedia.org.
“The North Carolina Gazetteer” is a dictionary of North Carolina’s geographical place names documenting their location, history and origins. First published by the UNC Press in 1968, it was compiled by noted North Carolina historian William S. Powell, Professor Emeritus of history at UNC-Chapel Hill. A revised 2010 edition co-edited with Michael Hill of the N.C. Office of Archives and History updated and expanded the volume. It contains information on more than 20,000 places in North Carolina. Source: NCDCR
“The key is that, whereas other sources list just the name, Powell’s book included the stories and derivations behind the names,” says Hill. “No other state has anything like it. I was pleased to work with Professor Powell and UNC Press on the revised edition.” Hill is lead research historian in the Office of Archives and History at the N.C. Dept. of Cultural Resources.
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The “Gazetteer” is the third work to be made available online through NCpedia’s partnership with UNC Press. The agreement to make the content from both the “Encyclopedia of North Carolina” and the six volumes of the “Dictionary of North Carolina Biography” available online was announced Feb. 9, 2012.
All articles from the “Encyclopedia of North Carolina” were added by the end of 2012. NCpedia is on schedule to complete the process of integrating articles from the “Dictionary of North Carolina Biography” this year.
The NCpedia expansion to include resources from the University of North Carolina Press has been funded through a Library Services and Technology Act grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
