<em>By Caroline Lara, Communications and Marketing Director, UNT Libraries</em><br>
	Newspapers represent the footprint of a community’s existence. From their earliest publication, newspapers have documented historical trends, shifting cultural identities, and life events of their populations. Free and open access to newspapers is critical to preserving and maintaining these footprints.<br>
        The University of North Texas Libraries is the lead institution in Texas for the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, a joint project by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers.<br>
        Since its participation in NDNP, the UNT Libraries has established the Texas Digital Newspaper Program (TDNP), through which they form partnerships with local public libraries and newspaper publishers to digitize and preserve as many Texas newspaper titles as possible.

<blockquote>"Our goal is to create a digital newspaper repository that represents all Texas counties",</blockquote> says Ana Krahmer, coordinator of UNT’s digital newspaper program. <blockquote>"Cooperating with local public libraries to digitize newspapers keeps local history within institutions that understand how to preserve it for public use in perpetuity."</blockquote> 
 
UNT Libraries hosts the digitized newspapers its site The Portal to Texas History (http://texashistory.unt.edu), which serves as a gateway to Texas history primary source materials.<br>
The program’s newest initiative is to preserve and host digital newspaper PDFs.<br>
<blockquote>"PDF print masters that are sent to a newspaper’s printer are a significant next frontier for newspaper access and preservation,"Krahmer says. </blockquote> 
All newspapers included in the repository are handled according to best practice standards established by the Library of Congress and the NEH for the National Digital Newspaper Program.<br><br>
For more information about participating in the TDNP, contact Krahmer at (940) 565-3367 or Ana.Krahmer@unt.edu or visit http://tdnp.unt.edu.