UT is locating, cataloging and preserving on microfilm all newspapers found in Tennessee and dating back to the 18th century, said Dr. James Lloyd, special collections director at UT's Hoskins Library. Hundreds of possible newspaper repositories across the state were surveyed. An estimated 6,000 different titles have been located in 200 locations across the state.
Newspapers are hard to catalog because they can have genealogies just like people.
Twenty-five of them may be related, but each time the title changes, it's a different record. The UTK libraries have the second-largest collection, he said. Lloyd said the cataloging alone will take seven or eight years to complete, not counting the time needed to preserve the collection on microfilm. The United States Newspaper Program, of which the program is a part, was created in 1982 as a cooperative national effort to archive and preserve newspapers published in the United States from the 18th century to the present. Historic newspapers are probably the single best source for some kinds of historic information.