During the 1990s, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Commission on Preservation and Access will direct considerable money and energy to ensure that materials of permanent value, published on impermanent paper will be preserved. While the Commission's primary concern is with the microfilming of brittle books in US libraries research collections, its efforts have made millions of people aware of the need to preserve the nation's documentary heritage. The preservation of newspapers has been recognized as one of the nation's priorities, with considerable support for the effort coming from the national government. But this is an effort that involves every state and nearly every community in the US. It is an effort jointly undertaken by librarians, archivists, historians, the newspaper publishers themselves, as well as others in the community who care about the preservation of a national boundaries; the libraries in this country, both great and small, contain files of newspapers that have come from every country in the world, newspapers which reflect their own national heritage. There are few libraries in the country that will not be involved on the local and state level in the United States Newspaper Program. It is an important effort, a part of the worldwide effort to preserve the newspaper--that everyday object that reflects our national character and the public events of everyday life.