My week started early on Monday with a “Beyond NDNP” pre-conference at the Willard Hotel. Attended by about fifty current and former (alumni) state project staffers from around the country, this day-and-a-half gathering was funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Its purpose was to see whether those who are digitizing newspapers outside of NDNP could agree on standards and protocols, as well as explore strategies for preservation and sustainability. There was a lively discussion of standards, page vs. article-level access, costs, and funding sources. Tuesday morning’s session (which Erenst attended) focused on sustainability. I learned a great deal and will attempt to share some of that knowledge in a future post. Meanwhile, Eden Robins from the Arizona project also wrote a blog post on “Beyond NDNP’ and more, with group photo!
Since I am relatively new to the project I attended the Tuesday morning NDNP session for new projects/new staff, at the new headquarters of the National Endowment for the Humanities. NEH now shares space at the Constitution Center with several other federal agencies, a big improvement from the charming but cramped and inflexible old post office building. Here I was introduced to NEH and LC staff, many of whom I’d corresponded with but never met. It was very gratifying to be welcomed personally by each of the staff members. They proceeded to give short summaries of the different NDNP processes—with which most of us newbies were already familiar, if not entirely comfortable.
The afternoon sessions included presentations by scholars and project participants on using Chronicling America for historical research, methods of outreach for K-12, and a most interesting session by Carrie Christoffersen of the Newseum, where, among its many exhibits, one can find digital copies of hundreds of the day’s newspapers (a selection of the front pages are also printed as posters on a daily basis).
On Wednesday we met at the Madison Building of the Library of Congress. I found the morning short sessions and afternoon lightning talks most interesting. Staff from the Connecticut project, which began last year, talked about the ups and downs of starting up, and S. Chandler Lighty from Indiana discussed taking over a mismanaged project from a predecessor who was clearly unqualified for the job. In the afternoon, Lighty gave an excellent lightning talk on how he used Chronicling America to prove that, contrary to legend, the Rev. James Naismith was not the first to organize a basketball game in Indiana (their project blog). Erenst’s lightning talk on Vermont mastheads, supplemented by the masthead poster session, was well-received and generated a lot of discussion. Mastheads are great conversation starters!
I was struck by the passion everyone demonstrated for their projects, the sense of curiosity that pervaded the meetings, and especially the friendliness of the participants, project folks and sponsor staff alike. I began to understand why Birdie was so devoted to the VTDNP, and why she felt that our six years in the program should be just the beginning of the effort. What NEH and LC started through NDNP has taken on a life of its own. I am looking forward to working with our veteran VTDNP staff for the next two years, and I’m hopeful that we can sustain our efforts well beyond the NDNP program.
–Jeffrey Marshall, Project Director & Principle Investigator, Vermont Digital Newspaper Project
