The National Endowment for the Humanities: Division of Preservation and
Access

Request for Proposals--Cooperative Agreements for Phase One of the
National Digital Newspaper Program (A Partnership between NEH and the
Library of Congress)

URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/ndnp.html 

Program Overview 

*Award amount: up to $500,000 
*Deadline for submission: September 1, 2004 for letter of intent;
October 1, 2004 for  receipt of applications 
*Award announcement: April 2005
*Grant period: 2 years beginning May 2005


The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is soliciting proposals
from institutions to participate in the development of a test bed for
the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Ultimately, over a period
of approximately 20 years, NDNP will create a national, digital resource
of historically significant newspapers from all the states and U.S.
territories published between 1836 and 1922.  This searchable database
will be permanently maintained at the Library of Congress (LC) and be
freely accessible via the Internet. An accompanying national newspaper
directory of bibliographic and holdings information on the website will
direct users to newspaper titles available in all types of formats. LC
will also digitize and contribute to the NDNP database a significant
number of newspaper pages drawn from its own collections during the
course of this partnership between NEH and the Library. 

NDNP will be implemented in several phases. After the completion of the
test bed, the Endowment intends to support additional projects in all
states and U.S. territories, provided that sufficient funds allocated
for this purpose are available. One organization within each U.S. state
or territory will receive an award to collaborate with relevant state
partners in this effort. Previously funded projects will be eligible for
continued support to digitize pages from new decades, as the program
increases its chronological span. 

Successful applicants for the initial developmental phase of NDNP will
select newspapers published in English within their state from 1900
through 1910 and convert, primarily from microfilm, over a period of two
years, a minimum of 100,000 pages into digital files, according to the
technical guidelines outlined by the Library of Congress.  Up to 20,000
of these pages may be drawn from previously digitized titles, provided
that the content meets the selection criteria for the program. Awardees
will also be expected to contribute to the evaluation by NEH and LC of
the program's future selection criteria, the technical specifications
and requirements of the program, and the effectiveness of NDNP's initial
interface for browsing and searching newspaper pages. 

NDNP builds on the foundation established by an earlier NEH initiative:
the United States Newspaper Program (USNP). Since 1982, the Endowment
has supported a cooperative, national effort to locate, catalog, and
preserve on microfilm American newspapers published from the 18th
century to the present. NEH has funded newspaper projects in all the
fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin
Islands. When completed in 2007, USNP will have provided bibliographic
control to widely scattered newspapers and have preserved on microfilm
(to consistent national standards) selected titles from this vulnerable
corpus. LC has provided technical assistance for the USNP since its
inception.

NEH expects to award up to ten, two-year cooperative agreements (of up
to $500,000 each), depending on the availability of funds. The
Guidelines for the Request for Proposals are located at:
http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/ndnp.html. LC's technical
guidelines are found at: http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/ndnp_techguide.pdf .

Deadlines:

        *  September 1, 2004: By this date, applicants must submit a
letter indicating their intent to apply.  The letter should list the
institutions that would be partners in the project as well as any
consultants from other institutions or organizations that will be
involved in the project's activities. 

        * October 1, 2004: Applications must be received by NEH.

For information about the application process, contact the Division of
Preservation and Access at 202-606-8570 or e-mail at
[log in to unmask] The postal address is: 

National Digital Newspaper Program
Division of Preservation and Access
Room 411
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 
Washington, DC 20506

Hearing-impaired applicants can contact NEH via TDD at 1-866-372-2930.

All questions relating to the technical guidelines should be directed to
LC staff at [log in to unmask] 

To obtain a print-version of the guidelines, call 202-606-8446, send an
e-mail to [log in to unmask], or write NEH, Office of Public Affairs, 1100
Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506.