With the advent of sophisticated scanning technology and indexing software that can handle the special requirements of newspapers
(e.g., multiple columns, dense text, variable fonts), companies and public institutions are beginning to make full runs of
newspapers available on the Web. The Library subscribes to the complete run of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal through Proquest's Historical Newspapers Online.
Accessible Archives, Inc., has digitized a number of historic newspapers of eighteenth and nineteenth century America: the
Pennsylvania Gazette (called the New York Times of the eighteenth century), the Civil War newspapers Charleston Mercury, the New York Herald, and the Richmond Enquirer, and a selection of nineteenth century African-American newspapers (including Freedom's Journal, Colored American, Christian Recorder, and the North Star). Such digital projects may provide access to the advertisements, death notices, and other parts of the newspaper considered
ephemeral by indexing services and never before made searchable.
The Library has begun to digitize some of its vast newspaper resources. Several projects are pending. An example of the
Library's efforts can be seen in the digitization of selected dates of the Rocky Mountain News and Cleveland Plain Dealer (forthcoming) for the Women's Editions of Newspapers.
