As Eureka Reporter online readers have already discovered to their distress, or at least puzzlement, if you try to summon the recently laid-to-rest newspaper you will encounter this cold note:

The Eureka Reporter newspaper has closed its doors and is no longer in business. If you would like to speak with someone regarding business dealings you may have with The Eureka Reporter, please call 707-476-8000. Western Web, the commercial printing plant, is open and operating in full force. They can be reached at 707-444-6236. Thank you ~

Not only has the ER ceased publication, its publicly accessible digital remains have been, apparently, cremated and cast to the wind. So what evidence is there that the ER really happened, other than that inexplicable, ghostly scrap that debuted in the editorial pages of the Times-Standard this week? I mean, aside from the bands of hungry unemployed creative folk roaming the precarious landscape.

Hard copies. You can find a near-complete set of hard copies of the paper going back to Day One at just one place: the Humboldt State University library.

Laurie Maxwell-Chamberlain, in Periodicals at HSU, said they are missing one copy -- May 11, 2008. "Do you have it?" she asked.

If you do, reader, maybe you could donate it to HSU.

Other than that, College of the Redwoods' hard copies of the ER go back about three months. The main branch of the Humboldt County Library, in Eureka, has about six months worth, as well as of other local newspapers. But while some papers, such as the Times-Standard, get microfilmed after about six months, the Eureka Reporter hasn't been microfilmed by anyone (that we know of). Not by the county library. Not by HSU. Not by CR.

Too expensive. And, besides, it was always archived online so why would it need to be microfilmed?

Indeed.