Howdy -

Ohh - I know EXACTLY what you are dealing with! The Aurora Regional Fire
Museum has a several dozen over-sized (24 by 36 inch) scrap-books filled with
newspaper articles pasted in them. What are or have we done about them you ask? --
ahh - err-uhmmm... nutting (yet).

Currently they are stored (flat) in boxes awaiting a "master plan." - Anyone
just chime in and let me know if you've got a bright idea for a plan. :-)

I thinking I should try and photocopy (onto acid-free-paper) each page or
even more ideally photocopy just each article. Then we will be able to store the
originals intact (and out of use) while at the same time we'd be able to
"fiddle" copies -- if nothing else puting the articles in chronilogical order so
they can be better indexed.

We then (down the road) could also use the COPIES to scan into a computer
(smaller and a bit less fragile than the original) and once in the computer use
some OCR software to convert them back into "real words" .

As for HOW to get the original pages onto the copying machine...hehehe well -
I suppose that's why I haven't actually DONE it. This plan is a bit
impractical. The pages are all oversized, (so you may want or need a large size copy
machine) and they are all in poor condition, and shessh there are soo many of
them. Hmmmm.... sounds to me like a good job for an "intern". Anyone wanna come
out and help me?

Okay - another more practical idea.  I've thought about having all the pages
microfilmed. I know it's not "sexy" in this high-tech society - does anyone
even still use microfilm?  How expensive is it to have a company come out and
film a small collection.

Hope I've been of help - please anyone else chim in with their two-cents
worth.

- David -
David Lewis, Curator
Aurora Regional Fire Museum
www.AuroraRegionalFireMuseum.org

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