Hispania News - August 19, 2005
Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection
Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection provides community with a free, searchable online database of historic Colorado newspapers from 1859-1923
Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection replaces microfilm as an easy-access resource for educators, students and history buffs.
Researchers of Colorado history rejoice—the era of tedious searches through microfilm has finally come to a close. The Stephen H. Hart Library at the Colorado History Museum, which houses one of the most comprehensive historic periodical collections in the state, now offers more than one-third of its historic newspaper collection from 1859–1923 through a fast, convenient, searchable, online resource—Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection (CHNC).
The CHNC is a collaboration of the Colorado Digitization Program (CDP), the Colorado State Library and the Colorado Historical Society, and is a useful tool for genealogists, educators and other researchers. The website, www.cdpheritage.org/newspapers, is accessible 24 hours a day and eliminates the arduous, time-consuming searches of microfilm.
Access to 78 newspapers from 20 cities and 25 counties is currently available, and CHNC’s ultimate goal is to digitize more than 2 million pages of Colorado newspapers. Approximately 10,000 pages are digitized for the collection each month and grant funded titles are being added chronologically, beginning with the oldest issues. Approximately 200,000 pages have been digitized since the project’s 2003 inception.
The digitization process involves obtaining the negatives of the newspapers—several hundred newspaper titles are available to digitize—from the Colorado Historical Society and the State Archives, scanning and duplicating the negatives, grouping the images into issues and quality control, and loading the images and data onto the Colorado Virtual Library. The Online Computer Library Center uses its software along with CDP’s Olive software to convert the database into a usable search engine.
Searches can be performed by keyword, title, publications or topics—genealogists can easily locate obituaries and educators can quickly find articles pertaining to a particular subject. Even newspapers written in German, Spanish and Swedish are available for browsing. CHNC provides free, printable primary source material for the classroom, accessible by both faculty and students at any time.
“We want to provide the access to information about the people and stories that made Colorado what it is today within a few clicks of mouse,” commented Rebecca Lintz, librarian at the Colorado Historical Society. “Because of this project, genealogists, educators and historians can find what they’re looking for within seconds rather than hours.”
The CDP was originally developed in 1998 when representatives from state museums, libraries and historical societies discussed how to properly digitize their historic newspaper collections. Small grants ranging from $1,500 to $5,000 were awarded to various CDP projects around the state.
Recognizing the massive effort the CDP had undertaken, in 2003, CHNC, a product of CDP, received funding through the Library Services and Technology Act and the National Leadership Grants for Libraries from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to digitize and create a searchable database of Colorado newspapers that do not fall under current copyright laws. Copyright laws apply to works published after January 1, 1923.
Digitization costs approximately $1 per page and much of CHNC’s continued funding comes from Colorado newspapers interested in the project. Public libraries across the state have also contributed to the project. Donations can be made to CHNC by visiting the website, www.cdpheritage.org/newspapers. Information for how to get a particular newspaper on the CHNC website is also available.