The article deals with the U.S. Newspaper Program recently initiated by the NEH Office of Preservation and the Library of Congress. The article begins with a brief discussion and some anecdotal illustration of the importance of newspapers for historical research. The U.S. Newspaper Program is intended to catalogue all newspapers in the U.S. on a state by state basis and preserve them through microfilming. It is estimated that a total of about 300,000 newspapers have been published in the U.S. since 1690. Microfilming and cataloging for newspapers published in the late 19th century is particularly important because the more acidic pulp paper used after the shift from rag to pulp paper in the 1870s and 1880s now falls apart at the touch. One method being used to find old newspapers is advertising in local papers asking anyone with old newspapers to come forward.