Information technology and libraries: Over 100 000 pages of Tennessee state newspapers to be digitized

UT Libraries will digitize Tennessee newspapers thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

UT has received $325,165 to work with the Tennessee State Library and Archives for the digitization of 100,000 pages of Tennessee’s newspapers. The newspapers are currently on microfilm and date from 1836 to 1922. This is part of the NEH’s National Digital Newspaper Program.

JoAnne Deeken, head of UT Libraries’ Technical Service and Digital Access, said: “It is important to digitize and make Tennessee newspapers available because newspapers are a way that we can communicate with the past. We see the past as the people living through it experienced it. It makes the past come alive.”

A group of state educators, genealogists, researchers and citizens will select the newspapers for this project, and they will be digitized over the next two years. The papers will appear at the Chronicling America website and later through the UT Libraries’ website. Deeken said they will apply for more grants to complete digitization of all state newspapers.