The South Dakota State Historical Society has announced that more historical newspapers will be digitized as part of a federal grant.
In September the State Historical Society-Archives was awarded a second round of grant funding in the amount of $240,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to continue digitizing historical newspapers.
An advisory board made up of individuals from history and newspaper backgrounds met in November and March to select which titles would be digitized with this second round of federal funding. Among those selected and approved by the Library of Congress were the Deutscher Herold of Sioux Falls, the Lemmon Herald, the German and English editions of the Eureka Post, the De Smet Leader, the Madison Daily Leader and the Oglala Light of Pine Ridge. In total, 17 more South Dakota towns will be represented in the collection by the end of the project.
The project is part of Chronicling America, a Library of Congress initiative to develop an online database of select historical newspapers from around the United States. As part of the grant the South Dakota State Historical Society-Archives will digitize approximately 100 rolls of microfilmed newspapers pre-dating 1922 over two years.
“Over the next several months the newspaper microfilm will be duplicated and sent to a digitization vendor and the digital files will be inspected for quality and accuracy,” said Chelle Somsen, state archivist. “Digital content should begin to be made available in batches by the end of 2017.”
The newspapers digitized during the first round of grant funding can be viewed online now by visiting the Chronicling America website: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/?state=South+Dakotaðnicity=&language.
For more information, contact the State Historical Society-Archives at (605) 773-3804. State Archives hours are 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. CST Monday-Friday and the first Saturday of most months.
About the South Dakota State Historical Society
The South Dakota State Historical Society is a division of the Department of Education. The State Historical Society, an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is headquartered at the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre. The center houses the society’s world-class museum, the archives, and the historic preservation, publishing and administrative/development offices. Call (605) 773-3458 or visit www.history.sd.gov for more information. The society also has an archaeology office in Rapid City; call (605) 394-1936 for more information.
