In selecting newspapers to digitize, the site relies on the discretion of contributing institutions.

The project describes itself as a "long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages." Local participants in the project receive two-year grants to scan approximately 100,000 newspaper pages, primarily from microfilm. For newspapers that are not digitized, the website directs users to library locations that are known to have the desired