Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, with the University of Arizona Libraries, recently landed a $319,588 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize 100,000 pages of historical Arizona newspapers, especially along Route 66.
According to Hoodline.com:
In anticipation of Route 66’s centennial in 2026, the project has set its sights on a special collection of newspapers. “The 100th anniversary of Route 66 will be in 2026, so one of our goals is to digitize some of the newspapers that were published in Arizona towns along Route 66,” Mary Feeney, a News Research Librarian at the University of Arizona Libraries and co-principal investigator and co-project director of the grant expressed to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.
The digitized collection of newspapers will not only celebrate this significant anniversary but will also enhance the historical record of the iconic highway.
The digitalization of old newspapers has greatly enhanced the ease of researchers and historians in finding long-forgotten history of Route 66.
Blue Miller’s Never Quite Lost blog is a good example of this. And Newspapers.com has helped Route 66 News find a few nuggets of information, as well.
(Image of old Arizona newspapers via University of Arizona Libraries)
Will they be online and available to people in other parts of the country, or just through the libraries? Just wondering if accessing them will require a subscription or if they will be available to all.