NCpedia gets 24,000 more articles

Posted on — Jeff Fobes

N.C. Department of Cultural Resources announces:

North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Secretary Linda A. Carlisle today unveiled a partnership between the State Library of North Carolina and UNC Press to make the six volumes of the “Dictionary of North Carolina Biography” and the “Encyclopedia of North Carolina,” some 24,000 articles in all, available as part of the Web site NCPedia.org. The free online encyclopedia features articles and resources about North Carolina culture and history.

Joining Carlisle for the announcement were new State Librarian Caroline (Cal) Shepard, UNC Press Editorial Director Mark Simpson-Vos, and “Encyclopedia of North Carolina” Associate Editor and UNC Press staff member Jay Mazzocchi.

“The goal of NCPedia has always been to make cultural information available for a wide range of users – teachers, students, business and civic organizations, cultural groups, and decision makers,” said Carlisle. ”The Department of Cultural Resources is committed to digitization, and this exciting partnership with UNC Press is a great leap forward as we continue to record and interpret North Carolina’s rich history and culture.”

“The Encyclopedia of North Carolina” and the multi-volume “Dictionary of North Carolina Biography,” were edited by William S. Powell, professor emeritus of history at UNC-Chapel Hill, and published by UNC Press. Founded in 1922, UNC Press is the oldest university press in the South and one of the oldest in the United States.

“This is a moment William Powell, all of us at UNC Press, and our many friends around the state have dreamed about for years,” said Simpson-Vos. “The Encyclopedia of North Carolina” and the “Dictionary of North Carolina Biography” are veritable treasure troves of information about our state, and UNC Press is delighted to be partnering with the State Library of North Carolina to bring these articles to the public as part of NCPedia.”

The State Library has already received the files digitally, and has begun the process of integrating content and making it available online. The project is expected to take three years. The NCpedia Expansion to include content from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina and Dictionary of North Carolina Biography is funded through a Library Services and Technology Act grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services.”

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes
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