The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center (NCDHC) at the University Libraries has received a $603,154 grant to continue its operations. The Library Services and Technology Act grant comes from the State Library of North Carolina with funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

Established as a partnership between the University Libraries and the State Library of North Carolina, the NCDHC promotes learning by increasing open access to North Carolina’s historical and cultural heritage. The center partners with libraries, museums, archives and cultural institutions around the state to digitize items from their collections and make them freely available online. 

In March, the NCDHC announced its first satellite location, in partnership with Elizabeth City State University. The new location helps meet demand for print newspaper digitization, scanning materials and assigning image metadata before sending the digital files to Chapel Hill where they are uploaded to the center’s website, DigitalNC.org 

The NCDHC also recently completed an 11-month project that added more than 2 million newspaper images to its database. The images, originally digitized through a partnership with Newspapers.com, are scans of microfilmed papers from the North Carolina Collection in the Wilson Special Collections Library. Now, in addition to being available on Newspapers.com, those images are accessible on DigitalNC.org as part of a searchable collection containing more than 4 million newspaper pages in total. 

Learn more about the NCDHC and its work to ensure that North Carolina’s cultural heritage is preserved and accessible.