The Yale Daily News Historical Archive
Project Description
Issues of the Yale Daily News (YDN) from important periods in Yale's history are now available online and searchable through the University Library's Yale Daily News Historical Archive. The Oldest College Daily Foundation, the Yale University Library, and the Class of 1945W have provided the financial support necessary to launch the initial phase of this ambitious project, designed to enhance access to the rich resources of the YDN.
For 130 years, the Yale Daily News has been the primary source of news and debate at Yale. Typically published every weekday when the University is in session, the newspaper is the oldest college daily in the United States. Many of the paper’s student editors, writers, and contributors have gone on to prominent careers in journalism and public life, including William F. Buckley, Lan Samantha Chang, John Hersey, Joseph Lieberman, Samantha Power, Sargent Shriver, Paul Steiger, Strobe Talbott, Calvin Trillin, Garry Trudeau, Jacob Weisberg, and Daniel Yergin.
In order to preserve this important legacy and to make the Yale Daily News available to the widest possible audience, the Yale University Library is in the process of digitizing the entire back file of the newspaper from 1878 through 2000. In Phase One of the project, approximately 25,000 pages have been digitized out of a total of approximately 135,000 pages. Content from January 2001 to the present is available in electronic form at the YDN Current Issue Archive.
This Yale Daily News Historical Archive represents a challenging and innovative step in digital library development at Yale. The project goals are to present the reader with a full page view of the original newspaper, provide the ability to zoom in on details and select articles or photographs on a page, conduct a word, name, or phrase search across all digitized YDN issues, and print out or download copies of articles and pages. In the Library the project is managed by the Digital Production and Integration Program (DPIP) and the Preservation Department.
The YDN is an important resource in the Library's department of Manuscripts and Archives and is heavily used by researchers, alumni, students, and staff. A fully indexed online version will dramatically enhance access to the YDN both locally and globally. The Oldest College Daily Foundation, one of the Library’s key partners, supports this project because the Library can integrate the YDN with its electronic research collections and can also provide the infrastructure to deliver, support, and preserve the digital YDN over the long-term.
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