The Maine State Library is trying to gather and preserve newspapers published for Maine's Franco-American community.
Adam Fisher, director of collections development and digital initiatives, says the library is about to embark on a fourth round of a nationally funded effort to digitize old Maine newspapers.
Fisher says this time, they are focusing on underrepresented populations, such as Maine's Franco-Americans.
"Over the years there's been a number of French-language newspapers published in Maine that provide a special focus on the Franco-American community, French Canadian immigrants in some of our cities and this will provide us the opportunity to digitize, to preserve, and provide access to those newspapers online."
Fisher says 30 or more French-language newspapers were published in Maine, but only about half are in any organized collection. He's reaching out to people who have copies of old publications they'd be willing to lend to the library, as it digitizes the content for future research.
The funding will allow the library to digitize about 100,000 pages of historical Maine newspapers.