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 shaped the agenda for The Newspaper Archive Summit: Rescuing orphaned and digital content. We brought 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.

The following sessions have been curated into the above video playlist:

• Welcome, introductions and keynote (video 1): Dean Mills, Missouri School of Journalism; Mike Middleton, University of Missouri; and Martha Anderson, Library of Congress
• Saving Time and Money: How Newspaper Digitization Can Help Scholars (video 2): Earnest Perry, Missouri School of Journalism (moderator); Bob Allen, Drexel University; Bernard Reilly, Center for Research Libraries; Chris Cowan, ProQuest LLC; and Patrick Cox, University of Texas at Austin
• Why Should Communities Care About Newspaper Archives? (video 3): Debra Mason, Missouri School of Journalism (moderator); Remmel Nunn, NewsBank; Joe Hight, The Oklahoman/NewsOK.com; LaDonna Garner, historic preservationist and certified geneologist in southeast Missouri; and David Rencher, geneologist
• Digitization: Successful Projects and the Challenge of Born-digital Newspaper Archives (videos 4-8): Jim Draper, Gale/Cengage Learning; Abbie Grotke, Library of Congress; Martin Halbert, University of North Texas; Leigh Montgomery, The Christian Science Monitor; and Frederick Zarndt, IFLA Newspapers Section
• Ownership and Copyright Issues (video 9): Richard Reuben, University of Missouri School of Law (moderator); Barbara Wall, Gannett Co., Inc.; and Caroline Pinkston, licensed patent agent
• Ownership and Access Issues (video 10): Brian Steffens, Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (moderator); Christopher Gill, Heritage Microfilm and NewspaperArchive.com; Randy Weissman, Chicago Tribune; and Mizell Stewart, Evansville Courier & Press