Is newsprint dead?

So far this year we’ve lost two major city newspapers, first the Denver Rocky Mountain  News on February 27, then the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last edition yeaterday.  It will try to live on as an online “newspaper”, trying to survive through selling online advertising and through online subscriptions.

Some say the death of newspapers started when AOL start sending a CD to every trailer park in the world.   Just an FYI:  Microsoft and AOL will not send you $245 for every email you forward!

There is no doubt that the Internet has changed the way a majority of us receive our daily dose of information.  And now that we see the handwriting on the wall, maybe it’s time to re-think just what it means to “go digital”.  Try and imagine, if you can, how many local newspapers have their archives, their local history really, sitting around in boxes just deteriorating with the passage of each year.  Imagine being able to search these snippets of history just by logging onto the Internet.

Digitization is the key to making this happen.  First, preserve the newsprint by storing it on microfilm, then digitize those images and make them available online with a searchable database.  Now anyone with an Internet connection can view these images online.

You should check out newspaperARCHIVE.com.  We have the largest online historical newspaper database, and we’re adding 2.5 million pages each month.  If you know of a local paper that just doesn’t know what to do with all their old newspapers, please have them contact us.  We can preserve that history for everyone.