The CHNC New Content Support Program is now accepting applications. The program is designed to help cultural heritage organizations across our state increase free online access to historic community news through the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (CHNC). We want to help local communities add their historic stories to the larger Colorado digital newspaper footprint. Last year’s program supported 9 institutions, including Breckenridge History, the Aspen Historical Society, Wilkinson Public Library, and the Museum of Northwest Colorado. Eight new titles were added to CHNC with this support.
About CHNC
A service of the Colorado State Library, the CHNC currently includes more than 7 million digitized pages, representing more than 940 individual newspaper titles published in Colorado from 1859 through 2025.
On-going support for maintaining, developing, and providing access to the CHNC is paid for with state and federal funds (IMLS) administered by the Colorado State Library. We continue to add new pages to the CHNC when community funding is located to pay the costs of digitization. Most of the content in CHNC has not been supported by national grants but by community funding provided by Library, Archives, Museums, Historical Societies, private individuals, publishers, etc. The CHNC Support Program was created to assist our partners in a small way.
Awards
Program funding will be awarded for: the digitization of newspapers on microfilm OR in original format; the processing of digital files including segmentation of pages into articles, advertisements and illustrations; the creation of metadata; OCR transcription of newspaper text and inclusion in the CHNC online database. Support awards can only be used to offset the cost of digitizing newspaper pages for inclusion in the CHNC, and will be applied by the Colorado State Library to support the actual digitization process and through the existing CHNC vendor partners. Best of all, the CHNC team manages the entire process.
In February of 2026, CHNC will award $15,000 in support for newspaper digitization projects. Institutions can apply for a maximum of $3,000 of support funding and a minimum of $1,500 towards the digitization of newspapers for inclusion in the CHNC. All support awards require a 25% cash match. For example, if an applicant requests and is awarded the maximum support funding of $3000, their cash match would be $750 for a total digitization project of $3750. The cash match needs to be provided to CHNC by April 1, 2026. The amount of funding requested by applicants will determine how many projects will be funded.
Who Can Apply
The CHNC has many different types of partners including university and public libraries, historical societies, museums, friends group, publishers, etc. We strongly encourage institutions that are not currently CHNC partners to apply. Special consideration will be given content that is only available in original format and not currently on microfilm, to those institutions that have not applied in the past and to newspaper content that is underrepresented in CHNC such as geographic areas, ethnic groups, social movements and non-standard content types such as newsletters and bulletins. We also welcome applications from high-schools and universities that have student newspaper programs.
Private individuals wishing to apply for support funding should be partnered with a local cultural heritage organization such as a library, archives, museum, friends group or association. Single individuals without affiliation will not be considered.
Application Form and Process
Complete all questions on the application form, found at this link. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Applications received on or before February 2, 2026 will be considered.
Successful projects will be selected by the Program Committee. Projects will be evaluated on the historical significance of the proposed newspaper title, support of content areas that are currently underrepresented in CHNC and plans for community engagement. Special consideration will be given to institutions that are not currently CHNC partners or to partners that wish to add a new title to CHNC.
Application Rubric
Total available points = 50 pts
- Completed form = 5 pts
- Historical significance of title(s) = 1 – 10 pts
- Support of Content Areas not currently represented = 1 – 10 pts
- New title to CHNC = 10 pts
- New Partner to CHNC = 5 pts
- Plans for ongoing community engagement and promotion = 1-10 pts
Project Period or Timeline
The project time period is from February 16, 2026 to December 31, 2026. Any supported project needs to be in process by September 1, 2026.
Deadline
Completed applications must be received on or before February 2, 2026.
Awards
Awardees will be notified by February 16, 2026.
Questions and Additional Considerations
The program does not cover indirect costs and cannot be used for any purpose other than the digitization of newspaper content to be added to CHNC. If you have questions about the support program, the application process, or about newspapers available for digitization or if you would like a cost estimate please contact Leigh Jeremias, [email protected]. If you are considering applying to support a newspaper title that may be in copyright (issues published after 1930) please contact Leigh prior to the application submission so copyright can be discussed.
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