National Digital Newspaper Program

You will prepare your application for submission via Grants.gov just as you would a paper application. (Applicants requesting a supplement to continue their project should note the special instructions appearing in brackets in sections 3, 4, and 5 below.) Your application should consist of the following parts.

Description of the project
Provide a one-page abstract, describing the collections of state or territorial newspapers that are the focus of the project and explaining the project’s principal activities and its expected results.
Table of contents
List all parts of the application and, beginning with the narrative, number all pages consecutively.
Narrative
Limit the narrative to twenty single-spaced pages. [The limit is ten pages for applications for supplements.] All pages should have one-inch margins, and the font size should be no smaller than eleven point. Use appendices to provide supplementary material.

If relevant, include sample materials (such as URLs or screen shots) and statistics (the number of projects undertaken and of digitized materials) that illustrate the experience of the project staff in doing comparable digital conversion projects.

Applicants should keep the review criteria (see below) in mind when writing the narrative, which must consist of the following sections.
- History and scope of the project
  Provide a concise history of the state’s or territory’s newspapers, indicating the historical events that have received special attention in the press, particularly from 1836 through 1922. Describe newspaper collections within the state or territory and the extent to which they have been cataloged and microfilmed. Discuss past or current efforts to digitize these collections. [In this section, previous NDNP awardees should describe only the project’s work to date, including specific information about deliverables in comparison with projected goals.]
- Methodology and standards
  Indicate whether the applicant institution or its partner institutions have access to large quantities of master negative microfilms of the state’s or territory’s newspapers for the period of 1836 through 1922 and whether the film was produced to USNP microfilming guidelines. If microfilm that was not created to USNP standards is being proposed for inclusion in the project, describe the overall quality of the microfilm and its suitability for digitization. (To do so, provide information about such factors as the density, resolution, reduction ratio, focus, and physical condition of the film.)
  
  Discuss the plan for selecting newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. An advisory board of scholars (including experts on the history of print journalism), teachers, librarians, and archivists should be involved in the selection process. Selection criteria should be developed with the following principles in mind.
  
  Titles should reflect the political, economic, and cultural history of the state or territory. Such newspapers usually have statewide or regional influence. Preference should be given to titles that are recognized as “papers of record” at the state or county level and that contain published legal notices, news of state and regional governmental affairs, and announcements of community news and events. In addition, selected titles should provide state, or at least multi-county, coverage of the majority of the population areas. Newspapers with a broad chronological span are preferred to those with short runs and those that published sporadically. In addition, special consideration should be given to titles meeting these criteria that have ceased publication, lack ownership, and therefore would be less likely to be digitized by other sources. While a previously digitized newspaper normally would not be a good candidate for inclusion, applicants may justify selecting such a paper in special circumstances.
  
  Explain what kind of information about individual titles would be made available to the advisory committee members to allow them to select papers that reflect diverse coverage—owing to differences in readership, editorial stance, or political orientation—as well as geographical and community-size representation.
  
  If relevant, discuss the institution’s capacity to administer a project that involves multiple partners. Explain the role of any proposed partners and include in an appendix letters from those institutions that indicate their commitment to the project.
  
  Describe the institution’s existing infrastructure for undertaking digital projects. State the institution’s experience with large digital conversion projects, especially from microfilm, and with projects that involve serials or newspapers.
  
  [Previous NDNP awardees should provide only new information for Methodology and standards, such as anticipated changes in the selection of titles or recently developed technical projects that would enhance the applicant’s participation in NDNP.]
- Work plan
  Provide detailed information on the following: selection of titles and evaluation of microfilm, conversion processes, metadata creation, OCR text conversion, quality review procedures, and data delivery mechanisms. Propose a schedule for project milestones and deliverables that includes deadlines for the various stages. Awardees will be expected to make regular monthly data deliveries over the course of the award period. [Previous NDNP awardees should provide only a schedule for milestones and deliverables with deadlines.]
  
  Awardees will be asked to produce semiannual project reports documenting their progress. A meeting of award recipients will be convened shortly after the cooperative agreements are announced. Attendance at an annual program meeting or workshop held in Washington, D.C., will also be mandatory. Two representatives with major responsibility for the project should attend these meetings. One should be knowledgeable about the state’s or territory’s newspaper collections; the other should have technical experience with digitization projects.
- Staff
  Identify the project staff, including consultants, advisory board members, and other technical and production staff hired for the project. Describe their duties and qualifications for the specific responsibilities assigned to them. Applicants proposing to digitize titles in French, Italian, or Spanish must include staff with the relevant language expertise to review the quality of the converted content and related metadata. Indicate the amount of time that the principal members of the project staff will devote to the project. All people directly involved in the conduct of the project, whether supported by NEH funds or by cost sharing, must be named in the budget and their anticipated commitments of time must be indicated. [Previous NDNP awardees should use this section to discuss relevant staff changes since their last award.]
Budget
Using the instructions (4-page PDF) and the budget template (3-page PDF), complete the budget spreadsheet (MS Excel format) or a format of your own that includes all the required information. While all items in the budget should be justified by the narrative, further explanation may be included in brief budget notes. [Previous NDNP awardees should provide a full budget for the supplemental request. Please note that the same indirect-cost rate that was accepted as a fixed rate in the approved budget for the original award should be used in the supplemental budget request.]

Include a line that will cover the expenses for two representatives with major responsibility for the project to attend the initial meeting of award recipients and the annual program meeting in Washington, D.C. Applicants should also budget for the expense of an LC technical representative to conduct a site visit and to offer technical consultation during the course of the award period.

For any outsourced work, such as digital conversion, microfilm duplication, metadata creation, or OCR text conversion, third-party contractor costs should be detailed in the budget category “Services.” Attach a complete itemization of these costs to the budget form. If there is more than one contractor, each one must be listed on the budget form, and the costs must be itemized separately.

To the maximum extent practical, all procurement contracts must be made through an open and free competition. They are to be awarded to the bidder or offerer whose bid or offer is most advantageous, considering price, quality, and other factors. Applicants must justify procurement contracts in excess of $100,000 that are not awarded by competitive bids or offers.

Permanent equipment, with the exception of digital imaging systems, may be purchased for a project if an analysis demonstrates that purchasing is more economical and practical than leasing. Applicants should include costs for delivery media and appropriate processing workstations, as needed to meet project goals. Permanent equipment is defined as nonexpendable personal property costing $5,000 or more and having a useful life of more than one year.

Consistent with the Buy American Act (41 U.S.C. 10a-c and Public Law 105-277), grantees and subrecipients who purchase equipment and products with grant funds should purchase only American-made equipment and products.

Appendices
Use the appendices to provide the following:

a comprehensive list of state or territorial newspaper titles on microfilm for the targeted dates (1836 through 1922), showing the institutions that hold the master microfilm, an indication of the relative completeness of the film files, and letters of cooperation from holding institutions;
representative samples (screen shots and/or URLs) of historical collections, preferably newspapers, already converted by the institution into digital form, and statistics indicating the number of materials converted;
brief résumés (no longer than two pages) for staff with major responsibilities for the project’s implementation and for consultants to the project;
job descriptions for any additional staff who will be hired specifically to work on the project; and
letters of commitment from outside participants and cooperating institutions.
[Previous NDNP awardees should include only appendices that provide updated information, such as new titles, résumés, or letters from participants.]

History of Awards
If the institution has received previous support from any federal or nonfederal sources, including NEH, for digital conversion activities similar to those to be undertaken in the project for which funding is being sought, list on one page the sources, dates, and amounts of these funds. If the project has a long history of support, the sources and contributions may be grouped and summarized.
Consultants and advisory board members
List consultants to the project and members of the project’s advisory board.

How to Submit Your Application via Grants.gov

Register or Verify Registration with Grants.gov

Applications for this program must be submitted via Grants.gov. Before using Grants.gov for the first time, each organization must register with the website to create an institutional profile. Once registered, your organization can then apply for any government grant on the Grants.gov website.

If your organization has already registered and you have verified that your registration is still valid, you may skip this step. If not, please see the Grants.gov checklist to guide you through the registration process. We strongly recommend that you complete or verify your registration at least two weeks before the application deadline, as it takes time for your registration to be processed. If you have problems registering with Grants.gov, call the Grants.gov help desk at 1-800-518-4726.

As part of the Grants.gov registration process, applicants are required to register with the Central Contractor Registration (CCR). Grantees are also required to maintain the currency of their information in the CCR by reviewing and updating their information at least annually after the initial registration, and more frequently if required by changes in information.

Download the Free Adobe Reader Software

To fill out a Grants.gov application package, you will need to download and install the current version of Adobe Reader. The latest version of Adobe Reader, which is designed to function with PCs and Macintosh computers using a variety of popular operating systems, is available at no charge from the Adobe website (www.adobe.com). Click on “Get Adobe Reader” and then “Download Now.”

Once installed, the current version of Adobe Reader will allow you to view and fill out Grants.gov application packages for any federal agency. If you have a problem installing Adobe Reader, it may be because you do not have permission to install a new program on your computer. Many organizations have rules about installing new programs. If you encounter a problem, contact your system administrator.

Download the Application Package

To submit your application, you will need to download the application package from the Grants.gov website. You can download the application package at any time. (You do not have to wait for your Grants.gov registration to be complete.) Click the button at the right to download the package.

Save the application package to your computer’s hard drive. To open the application package, select the file and double click. You do not have to be online to work on it.

You can save your application package at any time by clicking the “Save” button at the top of your screen. Tip: If you choose to save your application package before you have completed all the required forms, you may receive an error message indicating that your application is not valid. Click “OK” to save your work and complete the package another time. You can also use e-mail to share the application package with members of your organization or project team.

The application package contains four forms that you must complete in order to submit your application:

Application for Federal Domestic Assistance—Short Organizational—this form asks for basic information about the project, the project director, and the institution.
Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs—this form asks for additional information about the project director, the institution, and the budget.
Project/Performance Site Location(s) Form—this form asks for information about the primary site(s) at which grant activities will take place.
Attachments Form—this form allows you to attach your narrative, budget, and the other parts of your application.

To assist applicants, Grants.gov provides a helpful troubleshooting page.

How to Fill Out the Application for Federal Domestic Assistance—Short Organizational

Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. In items 6, 7, 8, and 9 below, NEH recommends that the project title, brief project description, project director’s name, primary contact/grants administrator’s name, and authorized representative’s name be typed directly onto the form, instead of being pasted in; pasted-in quotation marks, diacritics, and other symbols are often converted into question marks during transmittal.

Please provide the following information:

Name of Federal Agency: This will be filled in automatically with “National Endowment for the Humanities.”
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: This will be filled in automatically with the CFDA number and title of the NEH program to which you are applying.
Date Received: Please leave blank.
Funding Opportunity Number: This will be filled in automatically.
Applicant Information: In this section, please supply the name, address, employer/taxpayer identification number (EIN/TIN), DUNS number, website address, and congressional district of the institution. Also choose the “type” that best describes your institution (you only need to select one).

If your institution is located, for example, in the 5th Congressional District of your state, put a “5.” If your institution doesn’t have a congressional district (e.g., it is in a state or U.S. territory that doesn’t have districts or is in a foreign country), put a “0” (zero).

All institutions applying to federal grant programs are required to provide a DUNS number, issued by Dun & Bradstreet, as part of their application. Project directors should contact their institution’s grants administrator or chief financial officer to obtain their institution’s DUNS number. Federal grant applicants can obtain a DUNS number free of charge by calling 1-866-705-5711. (Learn more about the requirement.)
Project Information: Provide the title of your project. Your title should be brief (no more than 125 characters), descriptive, and substantive. It should also be informative to a nonspecialist audience. Provide a brief (no more than one thousand characters) description of your project. The description should be written for a nonspecialist audience and clearly state the importance of the proposed work and its relation to larger issues in the humanities. List the starting and ending dates for your project.
Project Director: Provide the name, title, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone and fax numbers for the project director.
Primary Contact/Grants Administrator: Provide the contact information for the official responsible for the administration of the grant (i.e., negotiating the project budget and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions of the award). This person is often a grants or research officer, or a sponsored programs official. Normally, the Primary Contact/Grants Administrator is not the same person as the Project Director. If the project director and the grants administrator are the same person, skip to Item 9.
Authorized Representative: Provide the contact information for the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) who is submitting the application on behalf of the institution. This person, often called an “Authorizing Official,” is typically the president, vice president, executive director, provost, or chancellor. In order to become an AOR, the person must be designated by the institution’s E-Business Point of Contact. For more information, please consult the Grants.gov user guide, which is available at http://www.grants.gov/applicants/resources.jsp.

How to Fill Out the Supplementary Cover Sheet for NEH Grant Programs

Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the following information:

Project Director: Use the pull-down menu to select the major field of study for the project director.
Institution Information: Use the pull-down menu to select your type of institution.
Project Funding: Enter your project funding information. Note that applicants for Challenge Grants should use the right column only; applicants to all other programs should use the left column only.
Application Information: Indicate whether the proposal will be submitted to other NEH grant programs, government agencies, or private entities for funding. If so, please indicate where and when. NEH frequently cosponsors projects with other funding sources. Providing this information will not prejudice the review of your application.

For Type of Application, check “new” if the application requests a new period of funding, whether for a new project or the next phase of a project previously funded by NEH. Check “supplement” if the application requests additional funding for a current NEH grant. Applicants requesting a supplement should provide the current grant number. Before submitting an application for a supplement, applicants should discuss their request with an NEH program officer.

For Project Field Code, use the pull-down menu to select the humanities field of the project. If the project is multidisciplinary, choose the field that corresponds to the project’s predominant discipline.

How to Fill Out the Project/Performance Site Location(s) Form

Select the form from the menu and double click to open it. Please provide the requested information. Instructions for the form can be found here: http://www.grants.gov/assets/SF424Site_Location_Instructions.pdf. Alternatively, instructions for each requested data element may be viewed by positioning your cursor over the blank field.

How to Use the Attachments Form

You will use this form to attach the files that make up your application.

Your attachments must be in Portable Document Format (.pdf). We cannot accept attachments in their original word processing or spreadsheet formats. If you don’t already have software to convert your files into PDFs, many low-cost and free software packages will do so. To learn more, go to www.neh.gov/grants/grantsgov/pdf.html.

When you open the Attachments Form, you will find fifteen attachment buttons, labeled “Attachment 1” through “Attachment 15.” By clicking on a button, you will be able to choose the file from your computer that you wish to attach. You must name and attach your files in the proper order so that we can identify them. Please attach the proper file to the proper button as listed below:

ATTACHMENT 1: To this button, please attach your description of the project. Name the file “projectdescription.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 2: To this button, please attach your table of contents. Name the file “contents.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 3: To this button, please attach your narrative. Name the file “narrative.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 4: To this button, please attach your budget. Name the file “budget.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 5: To this button, please attach your appendices. Name the file “appendices.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 6: To this button, please attach your history of awards. Name the file “awardhistory.pdf”.

ATTACHMENT 7: To this button, please attach your list of project consultants and advisory board members. Name the file “consultants.pdf”.

Use the remaining buttons to attach any additional materials (if appropriate). Please give these attachments meaningful file names and ensure that they are PDFs.

Uploading Your Application to Grants.gov

When you have completed all four forms, use the right-facing arrow to move each of them to the “Mandatory Documents for Submission” column. Once they have been moved over, the “Submit” button will activate. You are now ready to upload your application package to Grants.gov.

During the registration process, your institution designated one or more AORs (Authorized Organization Representatives). These AORs typically work in your institution’s Sponsored Research Office or Grants Office. When you have completed your application, you must ask your AOR to submit the application, using the special username and password that were assigned to him or her during the registration process.

To submit your application, your computer must have an active connection to the Internet. To begin the submission process, click the “Submit” button. A page will appear, asking you to sign and submit your application. At this point, your AOR will enter his or her username and password. When you click the “Sign and Submit Application” button, your application package will be uploaded to Grants.gov. Please note that it may take some time to upload your application package, depending on the size of your files and the speed of your Internet connection.

After the upload is complete, a confirmation page will appear. This page, which includes a tracking number, indicates that you have submitted your application to Grants.gov. Please print this page for your records. The AOR will also receive a confirmation e-mail message.

NEH suggests that you submit your application no later than 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the day of the deadline. Doing so will leave you time to contact the Grants.gov help desk for support, should you encounter a technical problem of some kind. The Grants.gov help desk is now available seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day (except on federal holidays), at 1-800-518-4726. You can also send an e-mail message to support@grants.gov.

To assist applicants, Grants.gov provides a helpful troubleshooting page.

How to Submit Supplementary Materials

If you are sending supplementary materials (those that cannot be scanned and converted to an electronic form and submitted via Grants.gov), please send eight copies of each item and include a list of these supplementary materials in the application’s table of contents with an indication that these have been mailed separately. Send the materials to:

National Digital Newspaper Program
Division of Preservation and Access
Room 411
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20506
202-606-8570

NEH continues to experience lengthy delays in the delivery of mail by the U.S. Postal Service, and in some cases materials are damaged by the irradiation process. We recommend that supplementary materials be sent by a commercial delivery service to ensure that they arrive intact by the receipt deadline.

Deadlines

Draft Proposals (optional): Program staff recommends that draft proposals be submitted at least six weeks before the deadline. Time constraints may prevent staff from reviewing draft proposals submitted after that date.

Applications must be received by Grants.gov on or before January 17, 2012. Grants.gov will date- and time-stamp your application after it is fully uploaded. Late applications will not be reviewed.

Supplementary materials must also arrive at NEH on or before January 17, 2012, to be considered as part of the application.

Reviewers involved in the process will be asked to apply the following criteria in assessing applications:

the applicant’s access to master negative microfilm of state or territorial newspapers for titles published between 1836 and 1922;
the institution’s infrastructure for undertaking digital projects and its experience with digital conversion activities, particularly with microfilm conversion or with conversion of serials and newspapers;
the institution’s experience in collaborative digital conversion projects;
the ability of a previously funded project to produce acceptable NDNP digital content within the award period;
the viability of the plan and proposed schedule to meet the technical specifications defined by LC for selection, conversion, metadata creation, and OCR text conversion;
the professional training and experience of the staff in relation to the activities for which support is requested, including language expertise, if relevant; and
the reasonableness of the proposed budget, including documentation of third-party quotations for specific types of services.

Review and selection process

Knowledgeable persons outside NEH will read each application and advise the agency about its merits. NEH staff comments on matters of fact or on significant issues that otherwise would be missing from these reviews, then makes recommendations to the National Council on the Humanities. The National Council meets at various times during the year to advise the NEH chairman on grants. The chairman takes into account the advice provided by the review process and, by law, makes all funding decisions.

Award notices

Applicants will be notified by e-mail in August 2012 of the decision. Institutional grants administrators and project directors of successful applications will receive award documents by e-mail by September 30, 2012. Applicants may obtain the evaluations of their applications by sending a letter to NEH, Division of Preservation and Access, Room 411, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506, or an e-mail message to preservation@neh.gov.

Administrative requirements

Before submitting an application, applicants should review their responsibilities as an award recipient and the lobbying certification requirement.

Award conditions

The requirements for awards are contained in the General Terms and Conditions for Awards, the Addendum to it, any specific terms and conditions contained in the award document, and the applicable OMB circulars governing federal grants management.

The specific terms and conditions contained in the award document will require award recipients to

establish an advisory board responsible for applying selection criteria to state or territorial newspaper titles published between 1836 and 1922 for digitization;
attend both an initial meeting and a subsequent meeting of NDNP participants in Washington, D.C.;
provide the following deliverables according to NEH and LC specifications within established deadlines. These include:
1. a list of the newspapers selected for the project, with information about the titles, geographic and chronological coverage, microfilm quality, and Library of Congress Control Numbers (LCCNs);
2. a production schedule with an agreed-upon timetable for sample and final files;
3. a technical analysis of available microfilm for optimal scanning of the selected titles (the format of analysis provided in the technical specifications);
4. a sample of digital assets that includes TIFF, OCR output, PDF, JP2, and metadata, to be delivered to LC within six months of the beginning of the project;
5. the delivery to LC by September 30, 2013, of 25 percent of the total number of pages to be scanned during the life of the project;
6. the delivery to LC by the end of the award period of the final digital assets (TIFF, OCR output, PDF, JP2, and metadata) for all pages, in conformance with the program’s technical guidelines;
7. a summary description in English (a maximum of 500 words) of the scope, content, and significance of each digitized newspaper title;
8. updating of CONSER records to include links (in the MARC 856 field) to digital newspapers in the state or territory (born-digital or retrospective conversion), for inclusion in the directory, and
9. the copy of the microfilm used for scanning, for deposit at LC.

The Library of Congress will verify that all digital files created comply with the NDNP specifications before they are incorporated into the NDNP database. The required sample (see item d) must be approved by LC before awardees continue to digitize remaining titles. The cooperative agreement between NEH and the award recipients will set forth the terms, conditions, and expected deliverables.

Reporting requirements

A schedule of report due dates will be included with the award document. Reports must be submitted electronically via eGMS, NEH’s online grant management system.

Interim and final performance reports will be required. Further details can be found in Performance Reporting Requirements.

A final Federal Financial Report (SF-425) will be due within ninety days after the end of the award period. For further details, please see the Financial Reporting Requirements.

If you have questions about the program, contact:

National Digital Newspaper Program
Division of Preservation and Access
Room 411
National Endowment for the Humanities
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20506
202-606-8570
preservation@neh.gov

If you need help using Grants.gov, contact:

Grants.gov: www.Grants.gov
Grants.gov help desk: support@Grants.gov
Grants.gov customer support tutorials and manuals:
www.grants.gov/applicants/app_help_reso.jsp
Grants.gov support line: 1-800-518-GRANTS (4726)

Privacy policy

Information in these guidelines is solicited under the authority of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U.S.C. 956. The principal purpose for which the information will be used is to process the grant application. The information may also be used for statistical research, analysis of trends, and Congressional oversight. Failure to provide the information may result in the delay or rejection of the application.

Application completion time

The Office of Management and Budget requires federal agencies to supply information on the time needed to complete forms and also to invite comments on the paperwork burden. NEH estimates that the average time to complete this application is fifteen hours per response. This estimate includes time for reviewing instructions, researching, gathering, and maintaining the information needed, and completing and reviewing the application.

Please send any comments regarding the estimated completion time or any other aspect of this application, including suggestions for reducing the completion time, to the Chief Guidelines Officer, at guidelines@neh.gov; the Office of Publications, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C. 20506; and the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (3136-0134), Washington, D.C. 20503. According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB number.