California Digital Newspaper Collection CDNC University of California, Riverside

About the California Digital Newspaper Collection

The California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is a freely accessible digital repository of historical and contemporary California newspapers, hosted at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). It represents one of the most comprehensive online archives of California's print journalism, covering titles from 1846 to the present, including the first California newspaper, The Californian, and the first California daily, the Daily Alta California.

History and Founding

The CDNC was founded in 2005 at UCR's Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. UCR was one of six initial participants in the NDNP. The collection was officially launched in 2007 with an initial 100,000 pages and received the Larry L. Sautter Silver Award for Achievement in University Computing in 2008. Funding came from the California State Library (administering federal LSTA funds) and the NEH. By 2025 the collection included over 1,525,341 issues, comprising more than 23,449,221 pages and 53,713,870 articles. The CBSR faced a significant funding disruption in 2025; state and federal funding were ultimately restored, though CBSR staff were laid off and operations passed to the direct oversight of the CHASS dean's office.

Collections and Holdings

The CDNC archives newspapers from across California spanning from 1846 to the present. Unlike the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, CDNC traditionally digitizes to the article level rather than just page level, allowing retrieval of individual segments including articles, illustrations, and advertisements. Notable holdings include Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión, Gold Rush-era papers, papers serving Black communities in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, and publications from border regions. The CDNC also preserves contemporary California newspapers collected as PDFs.

Access and Usage

The CDNC is freely accessible to the public at cdnc.ucr.edu. All newspapers published before January 1, 1930 are in the public domain and freely reproducible with attribution to the CDNC. Newspapers published from 1930 onward may be protected by copyright. The collection is also indexed through Chronicling America for NEH-funded titles. Contact for research inquiries: cbsrinfo@ucr.edu.