Historical newspaper records once available only through long hours of research can now be accessed within seconds. Learn about a program that is digitizing Tennessee’s historic newspapers and making them available online.

The public is invited to a Brown Bag Lunch on Wednesday, October 29, at noon in the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street. The speaker will be Louisa Trott, project coordinator for the Tennessee Newspaper Digitization Project, a joint project of the University of Tennessee Libraries and the Tennessee State Library and Archives. Trott will talk about the scope of the project, its value to researchers, how it can be accessed, and will give examples of the many types of information to be found in newspapers from the period.

For the past three years, the UT Libraries has been scanning historic Tennessee newspapers as part of a nationwide project, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, that aims to preserve this “first draft of history.” The first phase of the project concentrated on the Civil War and Reconstruction era, the second on the period of 1870-1900. The digitized newspapers are available to the public at the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website and are fully searchable.

The program is sponsored by 21st Mortgage. Guests are invited to bring a “Brown Bag” lunch and enjoy the lecture. Soft drinks will be available. For more information call the East Tennessee History Center at 865-215-8824.