About the Project

The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project is part of the                            National Digital Newspaper Program, developed by the                        National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress.

The University of Vermont Libraries were awarded funding from NEH to work collaboratively with partners in the Vermont Department of Libraries, the Ilsley Public Library of Middlebury, and the Vermont Historical Society to select, digitize, and make available up to 100,000 pages of Vermont newspapers, published between 1836 and 1922, from the microfilm collections of the Vermont             Department of Libraries and the University of Vermont.

Under its first Phase 1 grant (July 1, 2010-Aug. 31, 2012), the VTDNP contributed nearly 130,000 pages of historical Vermont newspaper content to the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America database. The VTDNP received continuation funding (Phase II: Sept. 1, 2012-Aug. 31, 2014, and Phase III: Sept. 1 2014-August 31, 2016) to digitize an additional 100,000 pages of newspapers in both Phase II and Phase III.

The VTDNP builds upon work of the NEH-funded                                      Vermont Newspaper Project, which, from 1997 to 2001, identified, cataloged, and microfilmed close to 1,000 historical Vermont newspaper titles and nearly 3,000 local holdings from over 100 libraries, historical societies, museums, and other repositories throughout the state.

In 2012, the Vermont Digital Newspaper Project produced a short video (about 7 minutes) that details the processes and function of our work. The video includes interviews with users and lots of interesting historical newspaper content. Most of the credit for the video goes to Sally Blanchard, (now former) Digital Support Specialist for the VTDNP. Sally conceived, directed, and assembled the video.