The Arkansas State Archives (ASA) is excited to announce it has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to continue the digitization of historic Arkansas newspapers for a third cycle (2021-2023) of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). As a result of this award, 100,000 pages of additional newspaper content will be added to the Library of Congress’s (LOC) Chronicling America website by the end of the two-year grant.

NDNP / ADNP: An Introduction

Arkansas began its participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) in 2017 when the ASA was awarded its first two year, federally funded grant through the NEH in partnership with the LOC. All content digitized as part of this project is housed on the Chronicling America website (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) where you can keyword search for content, sort by state, date or newspaper, or search by city and county. Additionally, images and text files can be downloaded directly to your computer. Unlike other newspaper repositories, Chronicling America is free and requires no signup or memberships.  

About the NDNP Project

The NDNP project is a partnership between the NEH and the LOC to provide free online access to historic newspapers from across the United States and U.S. territories. Grants are awarded to one “cultural heritage institution” from each state or territory. Historic newspapers (1690-1963) from each state or territory are selected and digitized through a highly technical and standardized process to ensure uniform quality and LOC standards are met. This standardization process involves duplicating original microfilm holdings (or, if working from original newspapers, scanning and then duplicating), collecting metadata on each individual page of content, digitizing (or, coding collected metadata so that content is searchable) and creating multiple image files for each page of content. With the goal of 100,000 pages by the end of the two-year cycle, content is broken up into batches of 10,000 pages. A single batch can take four to six months to complete, from the beginning stages to the final stage where content is “ingested” into the Chronicling America website database. Each state or territory typically completes three cycles with the option to continue on a more competitive basis for further cycles. Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and 48 states have or are currently participating in the NDNP project. For more information about the NDNP project and participating states, visit https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/about.html.

Arkansas’s Contribution to the Project

The ASA began work on the NDNP project in 2017 when it was awarded a two-year (2017-2019) grant to digitize historic Arkansas newspapers. At that time, the Arkansas Digital Newspaper Project (ADNP) was created. In order to select newspaper titles to be digitized as part of the project, an advisory committee of experts from across the state advised staff and recommended titles varied by the time period they covered, their geographic spread throughout the state and their political or specialized focus. For each cycle, new and returning advisory board members guide ADNP staff in the selection of newspapers titles in order to get the most varied coverage that tells the history of Arkansas.

Our 2021-2023 grant cycle money will be used to focus on underrepresented communities in Arkansas including female-owned and operated newspapers such as The Women’s Chronicle and the Arkansas Ladies Journal (Pulaski County), minority-owned papers such as the Arkansas Mansion and Arkansas State Press (Pulaski County) and foreign-language papers including Arkansas Echo (Pulaski County) and Stuttgart Germania (Arkansas County).

Digitized Newspapers

Below is a list of the Arkansas newspaper titles selected to digitize as part of Cycle 1 and those titles that have been completed, so far, as part of Cycle 2. New content is being added to Chronicling America monthly. Each title includes an accompanying history of the paper detailing the significance of the paper, owners/publishers, the particular political or social slant and interesting topics covered during its time in print.

How Can I Use the NDNP Project for Research?
Newspaper titles and pages digitized as part of this project can be found on the Chronicling America website at https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/. With a robust search function and high resolution photographs, OCR (or Optical Character Recognition) technology, and cropping abilities, it is easy to sort and search for specific information from Arkansas newspapers (or any other participating state’s newspapers).

For example, to search for Juneteenth celebrations in Arkansas newspapers, select Arkansas from the drop down menu and in the keyword box, using quotes around the wording, search terms such as:

• “Emancipation Day”
• “Jubilee Day”
• “Freedom Day”
• “Liberation Day”

When searching for a subject, you may need to look for alternative names. Juneteenth is a more recent term for the now federal holiday. If you are looking for a specific time period, you can also use the date drop down boxes to narrow your search.If you are interested in seeing all of the Arkansas newspapers digitized on Chronicling America, select the “All Digitized Newspapers 1777-1963" tab, above the search function and filter by state. This will give you a complete list Arkansas newspapers.

By clicking on the title of each newspaper, you will be taken to specific information about that title including location of the paper, publishing details such as how often the paper was published, different names the paper was published under and an essay with a written history of the paper, its publishers and the relevance to the history of Arkansas newspapers.

Another search feature offered on Chronicling America is the “US Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present.” This directory includes all U.S. papers that have been registered with the Library of Congress. This can be a helpful tool if you are looking for information about specific newspapers from across the state. Please note: all newspapers digitized on Chronicling America can be found in the U.S. Newspaper Directory but not all listed in the directory will be found on Chronicling America.  

If you or your organization is interested in a group presentation about the National Digital Newspaper Program, Chronicling America or how to research using the Chronicling America website, please contact us at [email protected].