Retention policy for local newspapers?
Hi all, I’m a special collections librarian at a regional archive. Our newspaper collection is disorganized right now (as I know many are!) and I’m looking to create a retention policy to help clean things up. We currently collect dozens of physical newspapers but can only afford a handful on microfilm as it stands. As you can imagine, space and preservation concerns are beginning to present themselves. I’m exploring options for getting film copies from peer institutions or building something in-house to digitize some.
My question is:
Do your institutions have retention policies specific to newspapers? How do you determine what you’d like to retain as an artifactual copy and what you’re comfortable discarding after you’ve verified an acceptable surrogate? I’m struggling to find examples online and hoped I could get some guidance here!
Newspapers have been one of my bigger struggles as a new librarian and I would love to chat with anyone also struggling with keeping them organized with limited staffing/resources! Thanks for any advice you have!