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55-411: The initiators of the project asserted that the intellectual content of newspapers serves an important role for researchers as it is for all intents and purposes the first draft of history. Newspapers also provide unique access to "diverse geographic viewpoints at the community level." Problematically, since the middle of the 19th century this "first draft" has been recorded on poor quality newsprint which

110-639: A The New Yorker article entitled Deadline: the author's desperate bid to save America's past. Baker felt so strongly about this he ended up buying as many newspapers as he could and starting the American Newspaper Repository. Newsprint Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper consisting mainly of wood pulp and most commonly used to print newspapers and other publications and advertising material. Invented in 1844 by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia , Canada, it usually has an off white cast and distinctive feel. It

165-515: A "mill", without further specifying its exact power source, has increased the difficulty of identifying the particularly efficient and historically important water-powered type. The use of human and animal powered mills was known to Muslim and Chinese papermakers . However, evidence for water-powered paper mills is elusive among both prior to the 11th century. The general absence of the use of water-powered paper mills in Muslim papermaking prior to

220-529: A 46-inch (120 cm) web, producing an 11 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch (29 cm) inch page width. Newsprint is generally made by a mechanical milling process , without the chemical processes that are often used to remove lignin from the pulp. The lignin causes the paper to become brittle and yellow when exposed to air or sunlight. Traditionally, newsprint was made from fibers extracted from various softwood species of trees (most commonly, spruce , fir , balsam fir or pine ). However, an increasing percentage of

275-461: A case, the newsprint may be purchased by the printer on behalf of an advertiser or a weekly newspaper publisher, or it may be purchased by the client and then ordered to be shipped to the printer's location. The biggest inputs to the newsprint manufacturing process are energy, fiber, and labor. Mill operating margins have been significantly affected in the 2006–2008 time-frame by rising energy costs. Many mills' fiber costs have also been affected during

330-504: A national database maintained at the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) "and accessible through more than 53,500 dedicated computer terminals worldwide. Microfilm copies of newspapers are available to researchers anywhere in the country through the inter-library loan program." It is imperative that the program create microfilmed surrogates that "maintain the integrity and authenticity of the representation of

385-475: A reference in al-Biruni in the 11th century to stones "fixed to axles across running water, as in Samarkand with the pounding of flax for paper," a possible exception to the rule. Hill finds the notice "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that this was a water-powered triphammer. Thomas Glick warily concludes that "it is assumed but not proved" that Islamic Xàtiva had hydraulic papermills, noting that

440-412: A sheet of paper that can be used in diverse ways. Modern paper machines can be 150 metres (500 ft) in length, produce a sheet 10 metres (400 in) wide, and operate at speeds of more than 97 kilometres per hour (60 mph). The two main suppliers of paper machines are Metso and Voith . It has also become universal to talk of paper "mills" (even of 400 such mills at Fez !), relating these to

495-505: A specific mill's business may depend on local infrastructure issues, as well as the degree of truck-vs-freight competition in the mill's region. The appropriate freight mode for delivery from a mill to a specific pressroom can also depend on the press room ability to accept enough trucks or rail cars. A newspaper roll's width is called its web width and is defined by how many front pages it can print. A full roll prints four front pages with four back pages behind it (two front and back on each of

550-595: A state or territory, usually the state's largest newspaper repository. Holdings from a large variety of repositories are catalogued. This includes public libraries, county courthouses, newspaper offices, historical museums, college and university libraries, archives, and historical societies. In addition to these state projects, the United States Newspaper Program funded cataloging of newspapers at eight national repositories one of which also received funding for preservation. Records are entered into

605-635: A typical weekday was 52.3 million (53.2 million on Sundays), compared with 62.5 million in 1986 (58.9 million on Sundays) and 57.0 million in 1996 (60.8 million on Sundays). According to NAA, daily ad revenues (not adjusted for inflation) reached their all-time peak in 2000, and by 2007 had fallen by 13%. Newsprint demand has also been affected by attempts on the part of newspaper publishers to reduce marginal printing costs through various conservation measures intended to cut newsprint usage. While demand has been trending down in North America in recent years,

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660-512: A water delivery is appropriate. (Aside from delivery cost, another consideration in selecting freight mode may be the potential for avoiding damage to the product.) All things being equal, for domestic shipments in areas like North America or Europe where modern road and rail networks are readily available, trucks can be more economical than rail for short-haul deliveries (a day or less from the mill), while rail may be more economical for longer shipments. The cost-competitiveness of each freight mode for

715-474: A water-powered paper mill. This is seen by Leor Halevi as evidence of Samarkand first harnessing waterpower in the production of paper, but notes that it is not known if waterpower was applied to papermaking elsewhere across the Islamic world at the time. Robert I. Burns remains sceptical, given the isolated occurrence of the reference and the prevalence of manual labour in Islamic papermaking elsewhere prior to

770-627: Is also completely without substance. Clear evidence of a water-powered paper mill dates to 1282 in the Iberian Crown of Aragon . A decree by the Christian king Peter III addresses the establishment of a royal " molendinum ", a proper hydraulic mill, in the paper manufacturing center of Xàtiva . This early hydraulic paper mill was operated by Muslims in the Moorish quarter of Xàtiva, though it appears to have been resented by sections of

825-717: Is decaying rapidly. Through microfilming the intellectual content, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress hoped to preserve it and improve accessibility. The U.S. Newspaper Program has supported (and continues to support) projects in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Each project is conducted by a single organization or agency within

880-445: Is designed for use in printing presses that employ a long web of paper ( web offset , letterpress and flexographic ), rather than individual sheets of paper. Newsprint is favored by publishers and printers as it is relatively low cost (compared with paper grades used for glossy magazines and sales brochures ), strong (to run through modern high-speed web printing presses) and can accept four-color printing at qualities that meet

935-507: Is used worldwide in the printing of newspapers, flyers, and other printed material intended for mass distribution. In the U.S., about 80% of all newsprint that is consumed is purchased by daily newspaper publishers, according to PPPC. Dailies use a large majority of total demand in most other regions as well. Newsprint is also used for cheap books, such as the Dutch Bulkboeken , affordable reprints of literary classics published from

990-556: The 11th century is suggested by the habit of Muslim authors at the time to call a production center not a "mill", but a "paper manufactory". Scholars have identified paper mills in Abbasid -era Baghdad in 794–795. The evidence that waterpower was applied to papermaking at this time is a matter of scholarly debate. In the Moroccan city of Fez , Ibn Battuta speaks of "400 mill stones for paper". Since Ibn Battuta does not mention

1045-408: The 13th century. Hill notes that paper mills appear in early Christian Catalan documentation from the 1150s, which may imply Islamic origins, but that hard evidence is lacking. Burns, however, has dismissed the case for early Catalan water-powered paper mills, after re-examination of the evidence. The identification of early hydraulic stamping mills in medieval documents from Fabriano , Italy,

1100-504: The 1970s on. Typically in North America, newsprint is purchased by a daily newspaper publisher and is shipped from the mill to the publisher's pressroom or pressrooms, where it is used to print the main body of the newspaper (called the run-of-press, or ROP, sections). The daily newspaper publisher may also be hired by outside companies such as advertisers or publishers of weekly newspapers or other daily newspapers to produce printed products for those companies using its presses. In such cases

1155-561: The Chinese and Arabs used only human and animal force. Gimpel goes on to say: "This is convincing evidence of how technologically minded the Europeans of that era were. Paper had traveled nearly halfway around the world, but no culture or civilization on its route had tried to mechanize its manufacture."' Indeed, Muslim authors in general call any "paper manufactory" a wiraqah - not a "mill" ( tahun ) Al-Hassan and Hill also use as evidence

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1210-986: The Montreal-based Pulp & Paper Products Council (PPPC). This was about 1.6% less than in 2000. Between 2000 and 2006, the biggest changes were in Asia —which saw newsprint demand grow by about 20%—and North America , where demand fell by about 25%. Demand in China virtually doubled during the period, to about 3.2 million metric tonnes. About 35% of global newsprint usage in 2006 was in Asia, with approximately 26% being in North America and about 25% in Western Europe. Latin America and Eastern Europe each represented about 5% of world demand in 2006, according to PPPC, with smaller shares going to Oceania and Africa. Among

1265-775: The Museos Municipales de Historia in the Instituto Municipal de Historia at Barcelona, has popularized a version of that thesis, in which Christian paper mills multiplied marvelously along the Catalan rivers "from Tarragona to the Pyrenees" from 1113 to 1244. His many articles and two books, valuable for such topics as fiber analysis in medieval paper, continue to spread this untenable and indeed bizarre thesis. As Josep Madurell i Marimon shows in detail, these were all in fact cloth fulling mills; textiles were then

1320-527: The U.S. housing market slowdown of 2007–8 by the shutdown of many sawmills, particularly in Canada, since the virgin fiber used by mills generally comes from nearby sawmills in the form of wood chips produced as a residual product of the saw milling process. Another consideration in the newsprint business is delivery, which is affected by energy cost trends. Newsprint around the world may be delivered by rail or truck; or by barge, container or break-bulk shipment if

1375-399: The basic mechanized industry of the Christian west. Fabriano's claim rests on two charters - a gift of August 1276, and a sale of November 1278, to the new Benedictine congregation of Silvestrine monks at Montefano. In each, a woman recluse-hermit gives to the monastery her enclosure or "prison" - Latin carcer ; misread by Fabriano partisans as a form of Italian cartiera or paper mill! There

1430-534: The biggest factors depressing demand for newsprint in North America have been the decline in newspaper readership among many sectors of the population—particularly young adults—along with increasing competition for advertising business from the Internet and other media. According to the Newspaper Association of America , a United States newspaper trade group, average U.S. daily circulation in 2006 on

1485-468: The curious. I remain, Gentlemen, your obdt. servant, The Acadian Recorder Halifax, N.S. Saturday, October 26, 1844 The web of paper is placed on the printer, in the form of a roll of paper, from a paper mill (surplus newsprint can also be cut into individual sheets by a processor for use in a variety of other applications such as wrapping or commercial printing). World demand of newsprint in 2006 totaled about 37.2 million metric tonnes, according to

1540-455: The distributors of paper products. It was said to be the only business of its kind in the world, and was started in 1931 by Tompkins. It prospered in spite of the business depression. " Log drives " were conducted on local rivers to send the logs to the mills. By the late 20th and early 21st-century, paper mills began to close, and the log drives became a dying craft. Due to the addition of new machinery, many millworkers were laid off and many of

1595-496: The fiber. Thus, unless the quantity of newsprint used each year worldwide declines in line with the lost fiber, a certain amount of new (virgin) fiber is required each year globally, even though individual newsprint mills may use 100% recycled fiber. Many mills mix fresh fibers along with recycled fibers to promote sustainability. Paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp , old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to

1650-399: The historic paper mills closed. Paper mills can be fully integrated mills or nonintegrated mills. Integrated mills consist of a pulp mill and a paper mill on the same site. Such mills receive logs or wood chips and produce paper. The modern paper mill uses large amounts of energy , water , and wood pulp in an efficient and complex series of processes, and control technology to produce

1705-562: The hydraulic wonders of Islamic society in the east and west. All our evidence points to non-hydraulic hand production, however, at springs away from rivers which it could pollute. European papermaking differed from its precursors in the mechanization of the process and in the application of water power. Jean Gimpel , in The Medieval Machine (the English translation of La Revolution Industrielle du Moyen Age ), points out that

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1760-621: The invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, all paper in a paper mill was made by hand, one sheet at a time, by specialized laborers. Historical investigations into the origin of the paper mill are complicated by differing definitions and loose terminology from modern authors: Many modern scholars use the term to refer indiscriminately to all kinds of mills , whether powered by humans, by animals or by water . Their propensity to refer to any ancient paper manufacturing center as

1815-522: The local Muslim papermakering community; the document guarantees them the right to continue the way of traditional papermaking by beating the pulp manually and grants them the right to be exempted from work in the new mill. The first permanent paper mill north of the Alps was established in Nuremberg by Ulman Stromer in 1390; it is later depicted in the lavishly illustrated Nuremberg Chronicle . From

1870-467: The microfilming done for this project is ineffectual because it cannot capture all information (i.e. color illustrations) and mistakes were made in filming that obfuscate what content there is. In his opinion this problem is compounded by the fact that newspapers were often thrown away or sold after they had been filmed. Baker makes his case in the book Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper and

1925-477: The mid-14th century onwards, European paper milling underwent a rapid improvement of many work processes. The size of a paper mill prior to the use of industrial machines was described by counting the number of vats it had. Thus, a "one vat" paper mill had only one vatman, one coucher, and other laborers. The first reference to a paper mill in England was in a book printed by Wynken de Worde c.  1495 ;

1980-503: The mill, near Hertford, belonged to John Tate. An early attempt at a machine to mechanise the process was patented in 1799 by the Frenchman Nicholas Louis Robert; it was not deemed a success. In 1801, however, the drawings were brought to England by John Gamble and passed on to brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, who financed the engineer Bryan Donkin to construct the machine. Their first successful machine

2035-610: The most thorough account of Muslim papermaking at the time, the one by the Zirid Sultan Al-Muizz ibn Badis , describes the art purely in terms of a handcraft. Donald Hill has identified a possible reference to a water-powered paper mill in Samarkand , in the 11th-century work of the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni , but concludes that the passage is "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that it refers to

2090-468: The mould rotates, the water is sucked through the wire, leaving a thin layer of fibres deposited on the cylinder. These cylinder-mould machines, as they are named, were strong competition for Fourdrinier machine makers. They were the type of machine first used by the North American paper industry. It is estimated that by 1850 UK paper production had reached 100,000 tons. Later developments increased

2145-633: The needs of typical newspapers. Charles Fenerty began experimenting with wood pulp around 1838, making his discovery in 1844. On October 26, 1844, Fenerty took a sample of his paper to Halifax's top newspaper , the Acadian Recorder , where he had written a letter on his newly invented paper saying: Messrs. English & Blackadar, Enclosed is a small piece of paper , the result of an experiment I have made, in order to ascertain if that useful article might not be manufactured from wood . The result has proved that opinion to be correct, for—by

2200-463: The newspapers, across the business. The Boston Globe and USA Today shifted to a 50-inch (130 cm) web in 2000. The Guardian adopted a smaller "Berliner" format in 2005. A 48-inch (120 cm) web with 12-inch (30 cm) page widths was adopted by The Wall Street Journal starting on January 2, 2007. The New York Times followed suit on August 6, 2007. In 2009, The Seattle Times moved from 50-inch (130 cm) web to

2255-445: The original document." Anything less could potentially result in the destruction of history. As such, in order to participate in the U.S. Newspaper Program, institutions must agree to adhere to an array of stringent standards. The standards for both microfilming and preservation were largely set by the Library of Congress . The most outspoken critic of the United States Newspaper Program is the author Nicholson Baker . Baker argues that

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2310-428: The paper markets. By the end of the century there were less than 300 UK paper mills, employing 35,000 people and producing 650,000 tons of paper per year. By the early 20th century, paper mills sprang up around New England and the rest of the world, due to the high demand for paper. The United States, with its infrastructure and mill towns , was the largest producer in the world. Chief among these in paper production

2365-483: The pertinent Arabic description was "a press." Since the "oldest" Catalan paper is physically the same as Islamic Xàtiva's, he notes, their techniques "can be presumed to have been identical" - reasonable enough for Catalan paper before 1280. My recent conversations with Glick indicate that he now inclines to non-hydraulic Andalusi papermaking. Currently Oriol Valls i Subin't, director of the History of Paper department of

2420-420: The press owner might also purchase newsprint from the mill for such contract printing jobs. For the roughly 20% of demand which is not purchased by a daily newspaper, common end uses include the printing of weekly newspapers, advertising flyers and other printed products, generally by a commercial printer, a company whose business consists largely of printing products for other companies using its presses. In such

2475-675: The production of paper; one such was the Brown Company in Berlin, New Hampshire run by William Wentworth Brown. During the year 1907, the Brown Company cut between 30 and 40 million acres of woodlands on their property, which extended from La Tuque , Quebec , Canada to West Palm , Florida . In the 1920s, Nancy Baker Tompkins represented large paper manufacturing companies, like Hammermill Paper Company, Honolulu Paper Company and Appleton Coated Paper Company to promote sales to

2530-505: The rapid economic expansion of such Asian countries as China and India greatly benefited the print newspaper, and thus their newsprint suppliers. According to the World Association of Newspapers, in 2007 Asia was the home to 74 of the world's 100 highest-circulation dailies. With millions of Chinese and Indians entering the ranks of those with disposable income, newspapers have gained readers along with other news media. Newsprint

2585-411: The required pressure. I entertain an opinion that our common forest trees, either hard or soft wood, but more especially the fir, spruce, or poplar, on account of the fibrous quality of their wood, might easily be reduced by a chafing machine, and manufactured into paper of the finest kind. This opinion, Sirs, I think the experiment will justify, and leaving it to be prosecuted further by the scientific, or

2640-466: The sample which I have sent you, Gentlemen—you will perceive the feasibility of it. The enclosed, which is as firm in its texture as white, and to all appearance as durable as the common wrapping paper made from hemp, Cotton, or the ordinary materials of manufacture is actually composed of spruce wood , reduced to a pulp, and subjected to the same treatment as paper is in course of being made, only with this exception, viz: my insufficient means of giving it

2695-401: The size and capacity of machines as well as seeking high volume alternative pulp sources from which paper could be reliably produced. Many of the earlier mills were small and had been located in rural areas. The movement was to larger mills in, or near, urban areas closer to their suppliers of the raw materials. They were often situated near a port where the raw material was brought in by ship and

2750-756: The statement by Robert Forbes in his multivolume Studies in Ancient Technology that "in the tenth century [AD] floating mills were found on the Tigris near Baghdad." Though such captive mills were known to the Romans and were used in 12th-century France, Forbes offers no citation or evidence for this unlikely application to very early papermaking. The most erudite authority on the topography of medieval Baghdad, George Makdisi, writes me that he has no recollection of such floating papermills or any papermills, which "I think I would have remembered." Donald Hill has found

2805-433: The two sections). Modern printing facilities most efficiently print newspapers in multiples of eight pages on a full newsprint roll in two sections of four pages each. The two sections are then cut in half. Faced with dwindling revenue from competition with broadcast, cable, and internet outlets, U.S. newspapers in the 21st century—particularly broadsheets —have begun to reduce the width of their newsprint rolls, and hence of

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2860-604: The use of water-power and such a number of water-mills would be grotesquely high, the passage is generally taken to refer to human or animal force . An exhaustive survey of milling in Al-Andalus did not uncover water-powered paper mills, nor do the Spanish books of property distribution ( Repartimientos ) after the Christian reconquest refer to any. Arabic texts never use the term mill in connection with papermaking, and

2915-498: The world's newsprint is made with recycled fibers . There are upper limits on the percentage of the world's newsprint that can be manufactured from recycled fiber. For instance, some of the fiber that enters a recycled pulp mill is lost in pulping, due to inefficiencies inherent in the process. According to the web site of the U.K. chapter of Friends of the Earth, wood fiber can normally only be recycled up to five times due to damage to

2970-564: Was Holyoke, Massachusetts , which was the largest producer of paper in the world by 1885, and home to engineers D. H. & A. B. Tower who oversaw the largest firm of paper millwrights in the US during that decade, designing mills on five continents. However, as 20th century progressed this diaspora moved further north and west in the United States, with access to greater pulp supplies and labor. At this time, there were many world leaders of

3025-399: Was installed at Frogmore Mill , Hertfordshire , in 1803. In 1809 at Apsley Mill , John Dickinson patented and installed another kind of paper machine. Rather than pouring a dilute pulp suspension onto an endlessly revolving flat wire, this machine used a cylinder covered in wire as the mould. A cylindrical mould is partially submerged in the vat, containing a pulp suspension, and then, as

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