We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
If you have a decent phone, I’d simply use its camera and a PDF scanning software. On my iPhone, I use the free Adobe Scan to create OCR:d (searchable) scans of newpapers. The quality is surprisingly good.
Only problem is with winkles/creases — if you’re serious about this, I guess you could try to put a glass or plexiglass ”window” on top of the newspaper to keep it flat?
I've scanned thousands of video game manuals- I have the pane of glass out of an 8"x10" picture frame for flattening pages. Works wonders.
You could try something like this Microsoft Image Compose Editor that stitches together a bunch of overlapping single images. This is a very old tool I had to research for uni but I'm sure there are more modern apps that can do the same.
Try parchment and ink quill pen
Just went through this but with books.
If you look on Amazon there’s a company called CZUR that makes scanners which are a camera on a stick with a foot pedal. Turn the page, take a picture. I had one and returned it as the image quality wasn’t much different than using my phone and the scanners are expensive.
There’s jigs and rigs you can buy or make for the phone and then just use a scanner app.
You’re going to want to find a solution that will stitch the image together from several scans. I am drawing a blank but I know I saw one in my research, either a phone app or this scanner does it.
Camera on a stand, and make a vacuum table that sucks it flat. Use a black fabric underneath the newspaper to eliminate bleed-through from the text on the other side.
I don't have the dedication to set up a vacuum table, but the note about the black fabric is incredibly useful! Never would've thought of that.
I started out adjusting brightness levels on a histogram during or after scanning, but then realized a dark backing would make the printing invisible and save me the effort. I use black cardboard when scanning newspaper or magazine clippings in a flatbed scanner, but I figured cloth would let vacuum through. I think there are vacuum tables made for engraving and woodworking applications, or an air hockey game table might work with the blower reversed.