Sippican Week and SippicanVillageSoup.com will soon welcome a second sibling to the family.

Dartmouth Week and DartmouthVillageSoup.com will debut on May 8. Based on the model established in Wareham 5½ years ago and expanded to Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester with Sippican Week and SippicanVillageSoup.com almost four years ago, DartmouthVillageSoup will feature daily local news and community conversation online. Dartmouth Week will be a free, weekly digest of that local news.

With an office on Route 6 in Dartmouth staffed by two full-time, professional journalists focused exclusively on the news and people of the Town of Dartmouth, the new operation will strive to serve the Dartmouth community as well as our papers and websites serve the communities we currently cover.

In other words, we think we’re on to something here in the tri-town and next door in Wareham – something that can be happily “exported” to other communities of roughly similar size.

In a world in which many people talk about "the death of newspapers," our papers – bright, lively, professional, tightly focused on the local community, and free – are read by people of all ages and supported by local businesses.

Want your breaking news online? That’s where we have it, along with opportunities for the community to discuss and contribute.

How is Sippican Week and the tri-town involved in all this?

The Dartmouth operation is being launched on the shoulders of a lot of learning that has happened in Wareham and the tri-town: Both what we do and how we do it. Seasoned Sippican staffers Matthew Bernat and Georgia Sparling are involved in passing on that learning to Team Dartmouth.

On a more commercial note, the new newspaper and site will give Sippican advertisers who also serve Dartmouth an opportunity to broaden their reach. Want more information? Please contact me at anne@sippicanweek.com or 508-717-9799.