California Digital Newspaper Collection
To our valued CDNC community,
I take this moment to update you on the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) and express our heartfelt gratitude for your continued engagement and support.
The CDNC project is proud to animate the research questions and personal curiosities of tens of thousands of monthly users. We recently passed an impressive milestone of 25 million page views accessed via the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America. More than a quarter-million visits came from our fellow Californians.
Over the past year, some of these same users have encountered uneven service, broken links, and unreliable search results when trying to access the collection through our website. Intermittently the site has gone dark.
As we continue to work through the operational transitions and budgetary challenges described last month, the immediate priority is the restoration of stable public access to our invaluable digitized materials.
With a combination of public and private dollars, therefore, the most urgent investments are going towards secure servers, software, and storage solutions that will mitigate the current risks of unreliable service, hardware failure, data loss, and cybersecurity threat. Since August 1st, I have approved more than $30,000 to restore vendor support and I am prepared to expend additional resources to back up a very large cache of source files. Additionally, we are thoroughly evaluating our grants, awards, and agreements, to ensure that we meet our obligations to partner institutions in California and across the United States.
To our individual users, transcriber community members, academic researchers, libraries, and dedicated friends in Sacramento and across the State: I sincerely apologize for any disruptions you may have experienced in the recent weeks. I thank you for your patience and understanding.
Your ongoing support has been invaluable as we continue the important work towards a more resilient and accessible future for the California Digital Newspaper Collection. If you are interested in contributing to our ongoing efforts in preservation and access, please visit us here. Every dollar counts. Every gift will be put to good use.
Thank you once again for your engagement and commitment to preserving our shared history.
Warm regards,
Daryle Williams
Professor and Dean
Founded in 2005 at the University of California Riverside, the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is an online resource for scholarly research and general public interest about California life, history, and culture. UCR is deeply committed to the sustainability of access and preservation of this invaluable collection held by the Regents of the University of California on behalf of the People of the Golden State.
Earlier this year, funding for the CDNC’s host, the Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research (CBSR), was adversely impacted by the suspension of financial support from the California State Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities. With emergency funding from the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and support from hundreds of donors, CDNC operations were able to continue at reduced levels pending the outcome of the California state budget process and legal appeals in federal courts.
We are grateful that most of the state and federal funding was restored at the start of the current fiscal year. UCR extends its thanks to the State Legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom for a direct allocation to the CDNC in the FY26 California state budget and to the private individuals who made gifts to the California Digital Newspaper Collection Fund. We nonetheless recognize that the restored funding will not adequately cover the rising costs of personnel, technology, and cybersecurity.
UCR is actively working on a sustainable model for the CDNC to continue to be available to the public. Effective July 1, 2025, the Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research functions under the direct oversight of the Office of the Dean within the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS). CHASS Dean Daryle Williams is actively engaged in identifying new platforms and partnerships, while respecting existing agreements and donor support.
Minor disruptions to service may occur as we implement a variety of administrative and technical changes. We appreciate your understanding during this critical transition.
For questions, please contact Summer Espinoza, Executive Analyst & Coordinator to the Dean, at summer.espinoza@ucr.edu.
Sincerely,
Daryle Williams
Professor and Dean
Frequently Asked Questions
The California Digital Newspaper Collection is a repository of historical California newspapers published from 1846-present, including the first California newspaper, the Californian, and the first daily Californian newspaper, the Daily Alta California. It also contains issues of current California newspapers, collected as PDFs, that are part of a project to preserve and provide access to contemporary papers.
In 2025, the Collection included 1,525,341 issues, comprising 23,449,221 pages and 53,713,870 articles.The CDNC was part of a project of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California, Riverside.
CBSR operations were suspended July 1, 2025, due to funding constraints.
The CDNC was supported by funding provided by the State of California and administered by the California State Library, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The CDNC faced significant disruption to its funding over the first half of 2025.
Under the leadership of Daryle Williams, Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, UCR is exploring alternative academic partnerships to ensure continued public access to this important collection.
Please contact Summer Espinoza, Executive Analyst & Coordinator to the Dean, at summer.espinoza@ucr.edu.
