Frequently Asked Questions Don’t see your question here? Contact us. When is my town’s newspaper going to be digitized? Digitization of the newspapers available online in Historic Oregon Newspapers is made possible through funding from grants, donors, and local organizations, and the newspapers selected are based on specific criteria relating to the funding sources. If there is a specific newspaper title or geographical location you would like to see included on the website, we encourage you to consider working with a local library or historical society, or forming a group with other like-minded researchers, to fund a digitization project for newspapers from your area. Please contact us if you’d like to sponsor a project or recommend titles for digitization. Why are certain titles not available on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website? In its early days, the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP) selected newspapers to digitize through an advisory board which included historians, librarians, curators, educators and journalists recruited from various institutions and diverse regions throughout the state. Since 2016, ODNP has operated primarily on a cost-recovery funding model, which means that we partner with outside entities–libraries, historical societies, museums, individuals—to cover the costs of digitization. Project sponsors propose a newspaper for digitization and raise the money, and we do all the rest. If you don’t see a certain title in Historic Oregon Newspapers it may be because no one has yet come forward to sponsor it for digitization. Occasionally ODNP is able to self-sponsor digitization projects through grant funding and donors. Other reasons that some titles are not available on our site include the following: Funding limitations from grant agencies Missing microfilm negatives or original newsprint Poor quality and/or condition of microfilm Copyright restrictions There are thousands of newspapers from Oregon, and we are adding new titles to our site all the time. Please contact us if you’d like to sponsor a project or recommend titles for digitization. Why are certain dates missing from digitized titles? You may notice that some newspaper titles in Historic Oregon Newspapers do not have digital versions available for certain issue dates or date spans. This may be for one of the following reasons: Digitization of this particular title may not yet be complete. Additional issues may be digitized and added to Historic Oregon Newspapers as time and funding permit. There may be copyright restrictions. In the United States copyright restrictions may apply to newspapers published less than 95 years ago. Anything published prior to that is considered to be in the public domain and free for anyone to use. For titles that are still protected by copyright, we must seek permission from the current rights holders before we can digitize those newspapers, which may or may not be possible. There may be gaps in the collection. Most of the newspapers available in Historic Oregon Newspapers were digitized from the microfilm collection in the University of Oregon Libraries. Many of the newspaper titles in this collection have missing issues, including gaps of large date spans. Holes in content may be filled in as missing issues are found, funding permitting. What newspapers are currently being digitized? We share this information on the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program blog. Are the newspapers in Historic Oregon Newspapers covered by copyright? The copyright status of the content in Historic Oregon Newspapers varies and falls into three categories: Public domain — Newspapers published 95 years ago or before are automatically in the public domain and are free of copyright restrictions. As of January 1, 2025, public domain applies to newspapers published in 1929 and earlier. Content in the public domain may be re-used in any way, although we appreciate a credit/attribution for Historic Oregon Newspapers. Out of copyright — Newspapers that may have been registered for copyright but not renewed, never registered at all, or did not print a copyright notice (©) on the paper. In copyright — These newspapers are covered by copyright but publishers have granted the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program permission to digitize and host their content online. Some of these newspapers also have a Creative Commons license that specifies what kinds of reuse are allowed. –> Learn more about copyright and Historic Oregon Newspapers. Can I get permission to reuse content from Historic Oregon Newspapers? For items in the public domain, no permission is necessary for reuse and you may do whatever you like with the content. We do appreciate a credit for Historic Oregon Newspapers. For items covered by copyright, first check to see if the newspaper title has a Creative Commons license. The CC license will guide what kind of permission you need to obtain and what kind of uses are allowed. ODNP staff can help put you in touch with rights holders. The University of Oregon Libraries is not the owner of any intellectual property which may be presented in Historic Oregon Newspapers. Unless an item is in the public domain (published 1929 or before), ODNP can grant neither rights nor permissions regarding use of the newspapers or their contents. It is up to individual researchers to assess copyright and appropriateness of use, and to ensure that materials are properly credited; however, ODNP staff may be able to help, so please contact us. Fair Use is a provision of U.S. copyright law that allows for reuse of content in Historic Oregon Newspapers for educational and research purposes. Check out our K-12 curriculum resources for examples! Any content on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website that was published after Dec. 31, 1929, may not be used for commercial purposes. Can I get something taken down from Historic Oregon Newspapers? Due to technological constraints, we are not able to take down or suppress individual items at this time. How can I support Historic Oregon Newspapers? If you are interested in making a donation to support the newspaper digitization program in general, please give here. Can I request a high-resolution page image of something I found in Historic Oregon Newspapers? Yes. You can make a request through this online form. Fill out the form with as much information as you have about the item(s). The form covers all kinds of formats and requests, so some fields may not apply to you. Costs may vary; a staff person will contact you with more information. Why is some text difficult to read? Can I zoom in on text? We digitize the majority of our newspapers by scanning microfilm copies. Most of the early newspapers only exist on microfilm, and unfortunately, the microfilm images are often flawed with scratches, blurry photography, bleed-through, or other imperfections from the original newspaper or from the microfilm itself. Film created before 1980 tends to have low resolution, and is prone to deterioration, both of which affect the quality of the final digitized image. We do our best to make the final digitized copy readable, but limitations of the source format affect image quality. Many of these difficulties can be overcome by zooming in on the text using the magnifying glass icon with “+” at the top of the page. Can you find an article on microfilm and send me a digital copy? How much will this cost? We do not provide this service at this time. How do I search/browse/print in Historic Oregon Newspapers? Check out this guide to using the Historic Oregon Newspapers website. My local library/historical society/museum has copies of my hometown newspaper. Can you digitize it for us? Fortunately, the University of Oregon Libraries has most Oregon newspapers available on microfilm, so we can usually use materials from our own collection for digitization projects. However, if your organization has a newspaper title or issues that we do not have, we can work with you to borrow those materials to digitize in our facilities. Please contact us if you’d like to sponsor a project or recommend titles for digitization. My local library/historical society/museum has copies of my hometown newspaper. Can we scan it and send you the files to add to Historic Oregon Newspapers? The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP) follows the same digitization and technical specifications required by the National Digital Newspaper Program. We scan from the best available source—negative microfilm or original newsprint—to create high-resolution TIFF image files. If your organization has this capacity, contact us to discuss your project. Don’t see your question here? Contact us.
