UK Libraries partners with federal government to provide access to WPA collections

The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has announced an official partnership with UK Libraries designed to ensure long-term, public access to tangible and digital collections of historical materials from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Over the past five years, UK Libraries digitized more than 450 WPA publications from Kentucky and other southeastern states. These digital publications are available via ExploreUK. As a result of the partnership with GPO, these digital publications will eventually be accessible from their online Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, making the digital collection available to an even wider audience.

The tangible WPA collection consists of almost 3,000 titles published in the 1930s and 1940s as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal to address unemployment during the Great Depression. For more details on the WPA and our collection of their publications, please see the LibGuide.