The attic of 744 Ostrom holds some of the most valuable memories for The Daily Orange — its archives.

The paper’s board of directors created a committee last summer to find new and better ways to preserve this priceless history. The board is still considering its options, although some progress has been made.

When Brooke Williams, the student general manager, came across the archives, they were in disarray.

‘There were years of papers sprawled all over the attic floor,’ she said. ‘I decided to spend the summer organizing and cataloging the archives in order to make them more easily accessible.’

Williams is in charge of assembling the loose archives and having them bound into books, organized by semester. Williams said she believes people should be able to access the archives efficiently because they are such an important part of the school’s history.

The papers date to 1903, The D.O.’s inaugural year, and include special editions such as issues published during the summer and for the New York State Fair. Alumni often contact The D.O. looking for past articles or editions, and editors use the archives to find story ideas, read up on history and search for archive photos to use in current editions.

Williams is working with general manager Pete Waack, IT director Mike Escalante, editor in chief Dara McBride and the 2010-11 management team, Katie McInerney and Kathleen Ronayne, to bring the archives up to speed. One task they are working on is digitalizing the archives.

Escalante said he’s been researching inexpensive options that meet users’ needs.

‘The task of making the archives digital is no small task,’ he said. ‘The D.O. itself does not actually have any form of the paper that would be easy to turn into a PDF.’

Scanning a newspaper is expensive because of the scanner needed and because the pages have to be manually separated, Escalante said. Also, it’s important that the digital items are searchable, which requires specific software.

The main challenge, Escalante said, is thinking of every option and angle.

‘We need to take money, time, accessibility and ease into account — we don’t want to spend lots of money, have this project take a year and then keep the archives hidden from everyone,’ he said.

Digital archives dating to spring 2010 are available on dailyorange.com because editors now upload a PDF of the next day’s paper to the website each night. But that leaves more than 100 years of papers that are not online.

The project is easy to throw on the back burner because it’s not a pressing issue, but Escalante said he is hoping to pick things up this semester.

Another issue is the archives are incomplete. There are about 31 years unaccounted for, including gaps between 1916-28 and 1995-99, Waack said. It took some time to find out exactly what was missing, and Waack is now contacting alumni who may be able to provide old issues.

But missing archives isn’t the only issue. Upkeep for current issues is difficult, too. Some of the bound copies are deteriorating around the spine, and issues can easily get out of order or get lost, Waack said. Ideally, he would like to get the bound copies into a climate- and moisture-controlled environment. Even a small unit can run about $15,000, so the board is exploring different options, Waack said.

‘With budget constraints, we can’t hire someone,’ he said. ‘We’re dependent on the board and staff committee to move the effort forward.’

Those interested in finding out more about the archives or the committee’s efforts should contact editor@dailyorange.com.

The D.O. welcomes all alumni to visit the archives to take a peak at old stories and relive their D.O. memories.

Meghin Delaney (’13) can be reached at opinion@dailyorange.com.

 

Do you have DOs from 1916-28 or 1995-99?

We’re looking to fill some major gaps in the archives. Please contact Pete Waack at pwaack@dailyorange.com if interested in donating them.

Published on February 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Meghin: medelane@syr.edu | @meghinwithani