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Florida Digital Newspaper Library

Because of their size and complexity, newspapers require construction of special display and search systems. The Florida Digital Newspaper Library builds from several different projects, all of which seek to preserve and make accessible Florida's newspapers. The Florida Digital Newspaper Library has over eight decades of history and prior development with the University of Florida Libraries, beginning in paper and microfilm.

History of the Florida Digital Newspaper Library

The P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History in the UF Libraries' Special Collections has the largest and most comprehensive collection of newspapers in the state. Special emphasis on collection newspapers for the P.K. Yonge Library began in 1947 when Julien Yonge established the Florida Newspaper Project, dedicated to preserving rare newspapers on microfilm. Through personal and professional connections he was able to borrow original issues of Florida newspapers from publishers and collectors and to have them microfilmed in Gainesville. Yonge also attended to the preservation of twentieth-century newspapers by subscribing to papers throughout the state and microfilming these issues on a regular basis. His goal was to make certain that at least one newspaper from each of Florida's sixty-seven counties would be preserved on microfilm.

In the 1990s, the University of Florida Libraries was the Florida participant in NEH's US Newspaper Program, which sought to locate, catalog, and preserve on microfilm all newspapers published in Florida from the eighteenth century to the present. In the 1990s, the UF Libraries also undertook and completed two digitization test projects funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to digitize Caribbean newspapers and distribute them on CD.

By 2000, the UF Libraries had gained enough digitization expertise to establish the Digital Library Center. The Digital Library Center quickly began to migrate existing microfilm projects to digital. However, current newspapers require permissions from publishers before they could be digitized along with the infrastructure to support digitization of the over five dozen newspapers collected by the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History. Within a few years, the UF Libraries had established the needed infrastructure and been granted permissions by publishers.

The Florida Digital Newspaper Library officially began in 2006 with an LSTA grant that converted the University of Florida's newspaper microfilming completely to digital. The conversion to digital was made possible through grants of permissions for online distribution from Florida's independent newspaper publishers. In 2006, the Florida Digital Newspaper Library was also awarded a National Digital Newspaper Program grant that supported the conversion of historic Florida newspapers on microfilm to digital.

Florida Libraries & Florida Newspaper Publishers

Florida Libraries and Florida Newspaper Publishers are encouraged to contact us to learn what newspapers we have in the digital queue and on microfilm. Using that information, Florida Libraries or Florida Newspaper Publishers partnering with their local libraries can apply for an LSTA grant to digitize back issues. The University of Florida would be happy to host/archive any digital files generated by such a grant.

Here are some helpful links in preparing for an LSTA grant:

Florida Digital Newspaper Library Strategies & Projects

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