BORah news: The borah senator newspaper is creating an archive of past editions

Past publications are stored in file cabinets in the newspaper room for now.

Imagine coming to your 30th high school reunion and still being able to look at your graduating year’s newspapers. This is what the Borah Senator is trying to achieve. Michelle Harmon, newspaper adviser, has been working since the summer of 2012 to archive all of the past and present newspapers. “I realized unless I took responsibility for archiving our print, nobody else would,” she said. Archiving all of these old papers is difficult though, not to mention expensive. To preserve the newspapers, it would cost more than $6,000; the newspaper definitely doesn’t have the funds for that, which is why Harmon has been applying for grants. The group received $675 last year from the Borah Boosters to create the first stage of the archive website, and $500 this year from the Idaho Humanities Council.  The archive is at http://bsn.stparchive.com. Senior and Editor-in-Chief August McKernan said she thinks it’s important to preserve the newspaper for future generations. She also said archiving the papers will help preserve the history of Borah. “That’s our job as journalists, to capture those moments,” said McKernan. McKernan said she is really proud of Harmon because the staff wouldn’t function without her. She also stated archiving the Borah Senator will help future newspaper staffs find inspiration by building off past layout designs and stories. Looking through issues online is also much more accessible and user-friendly than digging through file cabinets for hours at a time, she said. Now staffers and anyone who wants to take a stroll down memory lane with the Borah Senator don’t have to deal with yellowing papers that are falling apart. “Future generations should be able to look back at our papers to see how much it’s grown,” McKernan said. - Read this story and others at: http://www.borahsenator.com/top-stories/2013/12/17/archive-project-alive-in-newspaper
Written by Erica Rowe, Borah Senator Staff Writer • December 17, 2013
Photo by Brittany Perry

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