Although scanning from paper is possible, microfilm scanning is cheaper and good microfilm has been called “the single most critical factor in the success of newspaper digitization.”[2] The OCR analysis of scanned pages presents a number of technical challenges and the text of old newspapers is often difficult to read, which introduces errors and complicates searching.
Attaching metadata to images to make them more easily findable is another important step.
The cost of storing printed newspapers and the relatively low demand for originals after microfilming and scanning means that printed newspapers, once microfilmed or scanned, have often been thrown out.
Some people feel that this is a loss for researchers, or simply that there is a poignancy when the paper reading experience disappears.
More recent newspapers may have been "born digital," meaning that they were printed from computer files rather than by letterpress or phototypesetting.