Growing the Digital Historic Newspaper Footprint of Colorado

Giving to the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection grows access to Colorado history for everyone!

Our modern society has become accustomed to having a wealth of information at the click of a button wherever and whenever we want it. So much so that it’s easy to forget that important historical documents — like newspapers — were once solely printed and read on paper. In order to preserve this vital resource, the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (CHNC) is working with cultural heritage institutions around the state to digitize and provide online access to these historic treasures to everyone everywhere for free.

Newspapers are one of the most versatile and heavily used sources of information for researchers, genealogists, students, and the general public. Feature stories, society news, classified and picture advertisements, school and church announcements, news from surrounding towns, editorials, and cartoons all give the reader the sense of “being there.” Often the papers contain historical information that is not available in any other source.

CHNC was created using federal grant funds from the Institute for Museums and Library Services and the Library Services and Technology Act, but now continues to grow through contributions from individual libraries, museums, and other organizations. Together, these institutions have supported the digitization of over 3,840,000 additional pages. But there is still much more to do. You can help make these important resources available online by donating to the CHNC.

Help Us Begin the Preservation Now

If you have found the CHNC to be useful, we hope that you will consider making a tax-deductible contribution to provide general support for the resource. Your donation will support the CHNC’s mission to get all of Colorado’s earliest newspapers online. There are more than 2 million pages from over 200 Colorado newspapers still available for digitization through 1927 and so much more from the years that follow.

Swag

The CHNC has some nifty branded products that we would like to share with you as a thank you for your donation during the month of December. We welcome donations of any size, and you can even specify on the donation form the newspaper title or geographic/topical area you would like to help grow the collection around. Here is a summary of the available rewards for each donation level.

Donation Levels

• $1.00 – 100.00 = Acknowledgement on the CHNC contributors page.
• $101.00 – $150.00 = Deck of CHNC playing cards
• $151.00 – $250.00 = CHNC tote bag
• $251.00 – $350.00 = CHNC ceramic coffee mug
• $351.00 – 450.00 = CHNC cork coaster set
• $451.00 – $600.00 = CHNC metal water bottle
• $601.00 – more = Digitize a reel of microfilm of your choice

All funds received will go directly into more newspaper digitization.

If you want more information on supporting the digitization of your community’s newspapers, including cost estimates, please contact CHNC Support at the Colorado State Library: CHNC-Support@coloradovirtuallibrary.org or 303.335.0709.

Donate Today