Juniors JD Dyer and Joe Sageman were invited by the National Endowment for the Humanities to ‘test drive’ a new database of historical newspapers called “Chronicling America.” This massive database is being created by NEH through grants to communities and cities to digitize their newspapers from 1836-1922. The database is available online and is free to the public to use, and provides access to more local and subject-specific papers than other exiting databases.

The students were invited to participate in this event through Bullis’ strong participation in National History Day. JD and Joe each conducted a mini-research project—Joe on the Election of 1912 and Jonathan on Jim Thorpe—to try out the database and then provide their feedback on its utility to a panel of NEH representatives. Bullis Librarian Pat Semple also spoke about the database to the panel, along with some other Maryland educators.

The students discussed how they would draw on the database for historical research, and offered specific suggestions for improvement. Listening to their input were 15 NEH representatives, including NEH Deputy Chair Dr. Carole Watson and staff from the Public Programs office.

June 6, 2012