The following is an excerpt from a press release by the National Newspaper Association:

More than twenty-thousand community newspapers, some long out of print, have recorded American life since the seventeenth century, and two unique organizations have set the common goal of providing Internet access to this documentation of American heritage.

The National Newspaper Association (NNA) and Cold North Wind Corporation signed a letter of intent today to create America's Chronicles (SM), an online search engine that accesses the digital archives of America's community newspapers, beginning with the archives of the thirty-six thousand NNA member newspapers.

The project could eventually result in 500 million pages of original, historical content dating back to the 1600s and will be available online at www.americaschronicles.com. The site will be launched at the NNA's 116th Annual Convention and Trade Show in Milwaukee, 12-15 September, with access to the first of many digital archives.

By working with community papers and the NNA, a not-for-profit trade association representing the grassroots of America's newspaper owners, publishers, and editors, Cold North Wind will make digital access to this rich source of historical and genealogical content available for the first time.

EMC Corporation, the world leader in information storage, will provide data storage for the exceptionally large database required to create this digital archive. Cold North Wind partner microCreditCard, the Internet's leading credit card-based micro-payment facilitator and alternative billing provider, was chosen as the exclusive online payment service for its convenient digital content payment solutions.

Although the terms of the agreement were not fully disclosed, the subscription revenue from the project will go to the NNA and participating newspapers. NNA and Cold North Wind are also exploring ways to make the service available as a resource at public institutions. The two groups are calling on corporations across the country to get involved in this groundbreaking program.

"We are excited to breath life into hundreds of years of history that are currently buried in the archives of America's newspapers and libraries," said Diane Everson, publisher of The Edgerton Wisconsin Reporter, and president of NNA. "Our agreement with Cold North Wind will give readers everywhere access to historical events from the perspective of America's hometown newspapers. America's Chronicles(SM) will allow us to see how community, national, and international events changed the fabric of our ancestors' daily lives. Newspapers are truly the first draft of history."

The full press release is available at: www.americaschronicles.com/home.asp.

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