Erasing history: California’s digital news archive is at risk of going dark | Opinion

At a time when books are being pulled from public library shelves, words are being censored in school districts, and when federal funding for the arts and humanities faces a slow death by a thousand cuts — California has positioned itself as a bulwark for free expression and intellectual freedom.

Unfortunately, that status is now at risk.

The state is poised to effectively erase a vital part of our collective memory by allowing the California Digital Newspaper Collection to go dark due to budget cuts.

Housed at the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research on UC Riverside’s campus, the digital archive provides access to more than 16 million newspaper pages, covering over 100 years of California history. It is the single most comprehensive digital archive of the state’s press since 1846.

The California Digital Newspaper Collection is an essential piece of California’s democratic infrastructure. For journalists investigating patterns of injustice, students researching family histories and activists understanding the roots of systemic inequality, the digital archive is a lifeline. It allows us to witness how statewide narratives evolve, how communities are represented (or misrepresented) and how power operates through media over time.

This is more than a digital archive; it’s a living record of California’s cultural identity.

It tells the stories of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. It traces the rise of California’s labor movement. It amplifies the early voices of LGBTQ+ Californians demanding their rights. And it preserves the vital work of Black newspapers that chronicled civil rights struggles long ignored by mainstream media.

This is not merely data, it is lived history — and it belongs to all of us.

Archives like the California Digital Newspaper Collection do not simply store the past, they empower the future. They are where scholars and everyday Californians go to learn what came before, to understand the present and to write what comes next.

And yet, for the price of a rounding error — just $300,000 out of a $322 billion state budget — this vital collection is on the brink of vanishing. Losing it would strike a blow to every Californian who values transparency, truth and the public’s right to know.

Removing digital history is an act of erasure — one that is similar to banning books in libraries, but often even more permanent. In an era when truth and memory are under attack, such erasure is a form of complicity.

The decision to erase this rich archive is not happening in a vacuum. Across the country, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to suppress and sanitize history. From federally mandated educational censorship to the defunding of library systems in states like Missouri, the attack on intellectual freedom is real — and it is accelerating.

The National Endowment for the Humanities faces proposed cuts that threaten libraries and cultural institutions here in California and nationwide.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and California’s legislative leaders have rightly positioned the state as a defender of progressive values. But leadership is not just about what we say, it’s about what we fund. California cannot claim to be a sanctuary for free expression while letting its own historical record be buried due to fiscal neglect.

We at PEN America, the writers and free expression group, urge Newsom and lawmakers to restore and safeguard funding for the California Digital Newspaper Collection. Once this archive is dismantled, it may never come back. Years of work, millions of pages and the fragile threads of stories waiting to be told would all be gone. That’s not just a loss to libraries and universities: It’s a loss to democracy.

Currently, the California Digital Newspaper Collection faces a $300,000 deficit with only weeks left in the fiscal year. Without urgent support, access to this collection could be significantly reduced. Every dollar counts, so please consider making a gift to help preserve public access to invaluable historical records.