Sometime in the next month or so, the newspaper staff will be taking a day or two (or maybe three) to “clean out, clean up” our office. We haven’t done this job for several years and it is amazing how much “stuff” has accumulated.

We have books galore – collected through publishing houses sending us books to review. I think some of the books, too, have slid into the office by staff wanting to clean out their collections.

Filing cabinets and desk drawers are filled with old copy, magazines, newspaper clippings and more.

There are chairs that are either uncomfortable or no longer roll because of rickety wheels – and they are just in the way or tucked under a desk.

Speaking of desks, and tables, we have many that are used just to hold books and other stuff we need to get rid of or store properly.

The basement – that will take the most work. We used to do the layout of the paper by hand so the middle and both sides of the room have collected extraneous items no longer used by the current staff after we went all digital. We also had a darkroom in the basement which soon became the collection area for all things electronic – old monitors, keyboards, wiring, film cameras that don’t work, some of the old darkroom equipment, etc.

When the company sold the building which used to house the Wiscasset Newspaper staff several years ago, some of their “stuff” was brought to the basement as well and it’s “just here” gathering dust.

Yes, we will be hanging on to photographs, the bound yearly copies of the newspapers and anything else of historical value, but we want the place to be a bit more organized and less cluttered.

We will hold off organizing the attic for another time – hopefully in the dead of winter when it’s cooler up there!