Frequently Asked Questions

When is my town’s newspaper going to be digitized?

Digitization of the newspapers available online in the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub is made possible through funding from grants, donors, and local organizations, and the newspapers selected are based on specific criteria relating to the funding sources.

If there is a specific newspaper title or geographical location you would like to see included in the Hub, we encourage you to consider working with a local library or historical society, or forming a group with other like-minded researchers, to fund a digitization project for newspapers from your area. Funding can be made through a contract for service or a donation to the Minnesota Historical Society. Contact the Digital Newspaper team (newspapers@mnhs.org) to learn more.

Why are some newspaper issues missing?

You may notice that some newspaper titles in the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub do not have digital versions available for certain issue dates or date spans. This may be for one of the following reasons:

Digitization of this particular title may not yet be complete. Additional issues may be digitized and added to the Hub as time and funding permit. Please note that the date span for each title listed in the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub refers to the span of time that the newspaper title was published and not to the dates currently available in the Hub.

There may be copyright restrictions. In the United States copyright restrictions may apply to newspapers published less than 95 years ago. For some titles, issues published after 1922-1923 have not yet been digitized due to these potential copyright restrictions. For other titles, issues published after 1922-1923 have been digitized but are only accessible from the computers in the Gale Family Library at the Minnesota History Center.

There may be gaps in the collection. Most of the newspapers available in the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub were digitized from the microfilm collection of the Minnesota Historical Society. Many of the newspaper titles in this collection have missing issues, including gaps of large date spans.

If you or your organization hold print copies of issues or titles missing from the Minnesota Historical Society newspaper collection, please contact us at newspapers@mnhs.org. It may be possible for MNHS to arrange for digitization of these newspapers.

How do I search/browse/print in the Hub?

If you need help using the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, make your first stop the Hub's ProSeek Help site. The Quick Tips section can help your searching get off to a smooth start.

You can also try some search scenarios we've put together, to walk you through a few sample searches.

Can I get permission to reuse Hub content?

The Minnesota Historical Society is not the owner of any intellectual property which may be presented in the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub and can grant neither rights nor permissions regarding use of the newspapers or their contents. It is up to individual researchers to assess copyright and appropriateness of use, and to ensure that materials are properly credited. Material in the Digital Newspaper Hub may be protected by copyright law (U.S. Code Title 17).

Can I get something taken down from the Hub?

If you believe content in the Hub should not be online, you can submit a MNHS take-down request.

How can I support the Hub?

If you are interested in making a donation to support the newspaper digitization program in general, please contact the Minnesota Historical Society Development Office (development@mnhs.org).

Other questions?

If you have any questions not answered here, contact the Digital Newspaper team at newspapers@mnhs.org