Things You'll Need
Instructions
The Original
Avoid exposure to sunlight, moisture and extreme temperatures, which causes these newspapers to deteriorate quickly. Unheated garages and humid basements are poor places to store clippings.
Turn out the lights! Light causes a reaction with the acid in the paper that darkens it.
Refrain from folding the clipping. Folding causes undue wear and also allows two surfaces of newsprint to come in contact, which shortens the newsprint's life.
Stay away from staples and paper clips. Interaction between metals and a newspaper clipping will create permanent marks on the paper.
Keep newspaper clippings separate from other paper items you're attempting to preserve.
Check your stationery store for a polyester-film folder with a sheet of alkaline-buffered paper as the backing.
Slip the unfolded newspaper clipping in the folder.
Keep the folders in file folders and boxes constructed of high-quality, acid-free, alkaline-buffered materials.
Choose a cool and dry location such as a closet in an air-conditioned room as a storage place for the boxes.
Copies
Make photocopies for everyday use.
Photocopy the newspaper clipping onto nonacidic paper as many archivists do. (They actually dispose of the clipping itself, because newsprint is acidic, deteriorates quickly and can damage other paper.)
Laminate it. Lamination, however, ruins the collecting value of historic newspapers. If you're preserving a paper hoping its value will increase, you should not laminate it.
Make copies with a single-lens reflex camera equipped with a zero-focus lens.
Duplicate your newspaper clipping with your computer scanner.