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University Communications

University of Richmond Library Receives $478,141 Grant to Create Digital Database of Civil War-Era Newspapers

October 13, 2003

The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) has awarded the University of Richmond's Boatwright Memorial Library a two-year, $478,141 National Leadership Grant to create a digital database of Civil War-era newspapers.

The library will digitize newspapers from both Union and Confederate perspectives from 1857-1865 and analyze costs and benefits of various methods of digitizing newspaper content.

The project "will make digital copies of significant Civil War-era newspapers available online, allow the University of Richmond to build the foundation of an institutional repository and help the library and technical worlds identify the best way to provide access to individual articles in digitized newspapers," explained James R. Rettig, university librarian.

The library will work in collaboration with the Virginia Center for Digital History and the Perseus Project at Tufts University, "a nationally recognized leader in creating digital collections," said Retting.

IMLS is a federal grant-making agency in Washington, D.C., that fosters leadership, innovation and lifelong learning by supporting museums and libraries. Its National Leadership grants are highly competitive awards that focus on creative ways to address local and national needs.

Built in 1955, Boatwright library houses the university's collection of more than one million books, journals and periodicals.