The UNM College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences has received a supplemental award of $220,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize an additional 100,000 newspaper pages. They will be added to the 200,000 pages already scanned and available along with newspapers from other states at the Library of Congress website, Chronicling America.

The project is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program. The New Mexico newspapers, originally published from 1852 to 1922 in English and/or Spanish, are fully searchable.

This is the third newspaper digitization grant awarded to the library and the Center for Southwest Research. The New Mexico State Library in Santa Fe is offering use of their newspaper microfilm for this portion of the project, which will increase the options for digitization. The money will be used to scan additional issues of newspapers posted on the Center for Southwest Research website.  

The project’s advisory board, made up of historians and librarians, has encouraged broad geographic coverage. Already digitized are newspapers from every corner of the state including Farmington, Lordsburg, Carlsbad and Clayton as well as major cities like Las Vegas, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Old newspapers from former mining towns such as White Oaks and Cerrillos are also available for research and browsing.