Stories: Come into the Save database from the CCI database. Librarians make sure each text item that appeared in the newspaper actually enters the database with nothing altered in the transmission. When librarians first started putting stories into a database it took all day for a librarian to transfer 80 stories. Now most of this is automatic.

Photos: Thousands come into the Merlin database daily, but the ones to be kept must be individually saved or they will fall out. Photos saved might be used in the future, such as the 9/11 bombing and presidential elections.

Microfilm copies of the newspaper: Still made because the Library of Congress will not accept any digital versions, such as CDs, DVDs or electronic transmissions. The Hartford Courant has microfilm copies of almost every newspaper ever printed since it was first published in 1764 except the first issue

Bound copies: Discontinued in 2006 because of cost. Old copies now stroed in climate-controlled room.

Problems:

—Quirks with computers, such as a file degrading in the transfer between databases

—Search term wraps around to second line so item does not come up

—Stories put into paper with a different naming convention so that the files do not show up in the database

—Graphics do not translate into text

—Special projects, printed elsewhere, do not show up in the database

—If correction run on a story it must be connected to file

Role of newspaper librarians:  Librarians now are involved in more in-depth searches for such things as military casualties and weather statistics. (One search involved the names and addresses of family members of hundreds of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. This was given to reporters who contacted the relatives for a story.)