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Instructions
Archiving options
Decide your level of commitment. Are you looking to invest in a system for long-term frequent use, or do you just need to save things as a backup?
Save hard copies if you're looking for the cheapest method. Keep a few of every paper and label them in a way that makes sense to you. In newspaper terms it's a called the morgue, where old papers go to die. The downside to this method: It is difficult to find stories or photos unless you know exactly the date and page they ran on. It also requires you to retype text or scan in photos when you want to reuse archived content.
Since almost all newspaper writing and design is done on computer, saving copies of the files can be a more flexible, space-saving and accessible system. This requires computer space. Log the stories and digital photos into individual folders with appropriate titles, usually date-based. Include caption information in the "file info" section of each photo, or you'll have hundreds of photos you can't reuse because you don't know who is in the picture or what event it was taken at. This system can become difficult to manage. At some point you'll need to download the saved files onto a separate hard drive or onto CD-ROMs, making organization key to this method. This method is also cost-effective, but the drawback is no ability to search the archive's contents.
You can retrieve articles via the Internet or your paper's Web site if it has a good search function and a compatible basic Web-input system. It's important to talk to your Web designer about this method to find out how articles are saved in your system and if your server and software can handle the load. It is not an ideal method for archiving and would need to be backed up often, as well as maintained by whoever is doing the Web site. Accessing photographs by this method is harder because the low-resolution of Web images means they're unusable in print.
Another method is to archive via a database where you copy text from articles into a database file. This would allow for keyword search. This could be done for relatively low cost, but the time and money spent on having someone input all of the information and key it correctly would likely be better spent on more functional services. Also, it would not be possible to archive photos with this method.
Use a professional archival system. Most newspapers use some form of mostly automated system like Merlin that keeps track of run dates, file info and keywords. These systems can range in price from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on your needs and the complexity of the system. Some are Web-based and can be accessed from anywhere, while others are server-based, providing a more solid foundation for building a newspaper archive.