2024 Support for Newspaper Digitization

The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (CHNC) New Content Support Program for newspaper digitization is designed to help cultural heritage organizations across our state increase free online access to historic, and even some contemporary, community news through the CHNC. We want to help local communities add their stories to the larger Colorado digital newspaper footprint. Last year’s program supported 8 institutions, including the Akron Public Library, Summit County Library and the Security Public Library, and added new issues from more than 10 titles to CHNC.

About CHNC

A service of the Colorado State Library, the CHNC currently includes more than 3.8 million digitized pages (over 1 million more than this time last year!), representing more than 735 individual newspaper titles published in Colorado from 1859 through 2023. Due to copyright restrictions, the CHNC does not always include newspapers published after 1928, but the CHNC can digitize beyond 1928 if publisher permission can be secured by our partners or if it can be determined that copyright has not been renewed.

On-going support for maintaining, developing, and providing access to the CHNC is paid for with state and federal funds 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.

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 Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, 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 project manages the entire process.

In February of 2024, 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, 2024. The amount of funding requested by applicants will determine how many projects will be funded.

Who Can Apply

We strongly encourage institutions that are not currently CHNC partners to apply. Special consideration will be given 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.

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 Process

Complete all questions on the application form, found here. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Applications received on or before February 1, 2024 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 15, 2024 to December 31, 2024. Any supported project needs to be in process by September 1, 2024.

Deadline

Completed applications must be received on or before February 1, 2024.

Awards

Awardees will be notified by February 15, 2024.

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, ljeremias@coloradovirtuallibrary.org. If you are considering applying to support a newspaper title that may be in copyright (issues published after 1928) please contact Leigh prior to the application submission so copyright holder permissions can be discussed.