If a newspaper goes out of business, what happens to its archives? If a newspaper becomes available only online, what happens to yesterday's (or last year's) news? Why should we care? As the erosion of the traditional media economy and its concomitant decline in readership and revenues transforms one of the pillars of democratic life, a host of challenges emerge. In the past three years alone, more than 160 U.S. newspapers have stopped publishing a print edition or have quit business entirely. These issues will shape the agenda for The Newspaper Archive Summit: Rescuing orphaned and digital content on April 10-12, 2011. We will bring together scholars, journalists, newspaper publishers, librarians, digital archivists, and digital newspaper vendors to discuss the state of newspaper archives and the feasibility and logistics of creating and managing light and dark archives of orphaned and born digital newspapers.

Collections in this community

Recent Submissions

  • Why should communities care about newspaper archives? 

    Nunn, Remmel; Hight, Joe; Garner, LaDonna; Rencher, David E. (2011)
    This panel discussed how newspaper archives benefit and engage communities, the problem of and solutions for lost content, and considered whose stories would be lost with content and for whom the stories are being saved.
  • A mandate to preserve : assessing the inaugural Newspaper Archive Summit 

    McCargar, Victoria (2011)
    This paper reviews the issues of newspaper preservation confronting us today and how they were applied in the structure and content of the Newspaper Archive Summit held in Columbia, Missouri. Outcomes and takeaways of ...
  • Digitization : successful projects and the challenge of born-digital newspaper archives [videorecording] 

    Halbert, Martin; Grotke, Abbie; Draper, Jim; Montgomery, Leigh; Zarndt, Frederick (2011)
    This panel addressed several aspects of newspaper digitization projects. Jim Draper focused on a Gale/Cengage project to digitize 19th century newspapers in the British Library. Abbie Grotke explored the Library of Congress' ...
  • Ownership and access issues [videorecording] 

    Gill, Christopher; Weissman, Randy; Stewart, Mizell (2011)
    This panel discussed the issues surrounding newspapers and newspaper archives from the perspective of the owners of the newspapers.
  • Ownership and copyright issues [videorecording] 

    Reuben, Richard C.; Pinskston, Caroline (2011)
    This panel discussed what copyright issues surround a project like the Dark Archives Project and how to deal with those issues.
  • Saving time and money : how newspapers digitization can help scholars 

    Allen, Robert B.; Reilly, Bernard; Cowan, Chris; Cox, Patrick (2011)
    This panel discussed how newspaper digitization can help scholars save time and money as they research.
  • Welcome and keynote address [videorecording] 

    Anderson, Martha; Carner, Dorothy; Middleton, Michael; Mills, Dean (2011)
    After welcomes and introductory remarks by Dorothy Carner, Michael Middleton and Dean Mills, keynote speaker Martha Anderson offered her observations on news and some ideas on working together on a national level to preserve ...
  • The Newspaper Archive Summit : rescuing orphaned and digital content 

    Newspaper Archive Summit (2011)
    This poster presented information about and some results from the Newspaper Archive Summit held at the Reynolds Journalism Institute on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus April 10-12, 2011.
  • Developing an action plan for preservation and access 

    Newspaper Archive Summit (2011)
    Day 2 of the Newspaper Archive Summit included a brainstorming session to determine what is in a newspaper archive, and idea generation for continuing preservation and access to newspaper archives. This document presents ...
  • Worksheets for idea development 

    Newspaper Archive Summit (2011)
    As part of day 2 of the Summit, participants were asked to form teams and develop an action plan for preservation of and access to newspapers. This document contains the handwritten notes from the teams with their plan, ...
  • Newspaper Archive Summit program 

    Newspaper Archive Summit (2011)
    The program for the Newspaper Archive Summit: Rescuing digital and orphaned content provides the agenda for the Summit as well as biographies of the convenors, hosts and panelists.