The project
The US Caribbean & Florida Digital Newspaper Project is a collaborative project between the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries, the library system at the University of Puerto Rico–Rio Piedras, and the University of the Virgin Islands, as part of the state and territories’ involvement in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). With funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the project will digitize approximately 100,000 pages of historic newspapers published through 1963.
The US Caribbean & Florida Digital Newspaper Project builds on work completed for the Florida and Puerto Rico Digital Newspaper Project, a $923,000 NEH-funded project which ran from 2013 to 2019 with the primary goal of digitizing newspapers from Florida and Puerto Rico. The latest project (funded in 2019) expands the scope of the FPRDNP, by expanding the content for Florida to include ethnic press and by bringing on the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) as a new partner to include digitization of newspapers published on the islands. NEH funding of the Caribbean & Ethnic Florida project brings the combined project total to over $1.2 million.
The NDNP, a partnership between the NEH and the Library of Congress, is a long-term effort to provide permanent, free access to historic newspapers published in the United States and its territories between 1690 and 1963.
The completed project will provide free, internet-based access to newspapers that are currently available only on aging microfilm. The digitized papers will be available through the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America, the University of Florida Libraries’ Florida Digital Newspaper Library, and the Digital Library of the Caribbean.
The logo
In 2019, after the project rebranded, a new logo was developed to welcome our new project partner and accurately reflect the change in scope.
The logo and banner were created by Tracy McKay-Ratliff, LibraryPress@UF Designer & Coordinator.
Some explanation of the icon design of the logo:
This Caribbean kaleidoscope dot pattern design incorporates a variety of Caribbean-like watercolors, reminiscent of the tropical colors for land, sky, and ocean. The large, colorful irregular dots give a slightly worn, vintage quality, referring to the historical significance of the newspaper archives. The dot design connects this project in an abstract way to ink dot patterns of newsprint. The smaller web of white dots overlaying on the larger dots represents the online digitization of these newspaper archives and their availability in the UFDC. There is an overlay quality to the logo dot pattern, to represent the numerous partnerships and expansiveness of this project.
Some explanation of wordmark portion of the logo:
The project title is in a bold, san serif, all caps, and in black, to give it an informational and accessible look and feel. The ampersand is more of a design element, incorporating the newsprint dot pattern and colors to tie it to the icon design. A single quotation mark element is included in the ampersand design represents journalism and the headlines found in newspapers.
A separator line was added to the wordmark to separate the “US Caribbean & Florida” from the “Digital Newspaper Project,” which is italicized to give it a forward moving quality. The dot pattern design is used in the separator line and includes all the colors from the icon, which offsets the san serif font in black.
Some explanation on the banner design:
The banner design incorporates compelling images from the digital newspaper project. Comprised primarily of ads, the banner engages and encourages the reader to explore these open access historic newspapers.
