Whether it was a story that broke major news, created campus controversy, or simply made students stop and smile, there have been many memorable contributions to The Daily Orange.

We’d like to make it possible for you to see those papers again — in digital form.

Last year, the Board of Directors formed an archives committee to organize the mess of papers in the office attic and to start discussing how to bring our archives into the digital age. We’re finishing up the process of organizing and binding our print archives, and we are ready to start the process of digitizing the archives, from 1903 to the present.

We believe preserving our archives this way is important to our readers, the current student body and the alumni. Digitizing the archives will make research and use of the archives easier for our reporters and others wishing to use The Daily Orange as a document of SU history. The archives will be searchable to ensure efficiency and ease.

We began the process by digitizing the papers from two of the most important years in Daily Orange history — 1903 and 1971. You can view a sample of those pages at the following links:
http://dailyorange.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/1970archive.pdf
http://dailyorange.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/1903archive.pdf

To continue this process, we need your help. It will cost about $200 to digitize each year. If you donate to our archives fund, you can earmark your donation for a specific year, and we’ll digitize that one first. Or, you can get together with former colleagues and sponsor a year, or even a decade, together. Each donor will receive credit on the years they helped sponsor. For example, a line would read “1976 digitization brought to you by Tom Jones.”

You might be asking whether digitization of the archives is the best way for your donations to be spent. The Daily Orange has come off two profitable years in a row, which is exciting news at a time when many papers are under a financial crunch. Our profits right now, however, are going toward daily production, travel and other things crucial to keeping The Daily Orange running. With increasing costs in mind, donations are the only way for us to fund the digitization process. If you would like your donation to be designated to another cost, however, please indicate that and it will be spent as you wish.

If you’d like to make a donation, you can do so at www.dailyorange.com/donate. If you have questions about the archives, please email them to editor@dailyorange.com.

Thank you for your contributions.

Sincerely,
The Daily Orange Archives Committee

Published on October 29, 2012 at 2:56 am