Lit geek fun: the New Yorker begins blogging its archives

When the New Yorker made its complete archives available via DVD, I was thrilled to get the set. Sometimes I'd pop a DVD in and page through the earliest copies. Once I read everything Pauline Kael had ever published with the magazine. If I could immerse myself in seven-plus decades of archives, I just might.

Apparently, some people immerse themselves in archives for a living -- like the New Yorker's librarians. Today, the magazine launched a new blog, Back Issues, which will be steered by its two librarians.

We’ll plumb the archive for Profiles of people making news now, look into previous coverage of long-standing issues, and seek out notable pieces that feel as relevant today as when they were first published.

We also intend to create a forum in which our readers can participate. We’ll want to hear from you about your favorite New Yorker pieces, and we’ll be bringing the Ask the Librarianscolumn from its original home on Emdashes to answer your questions about the magazine’s history.

Although it hasn't yet posted much, it's an outgrowth of a series of posts from the magazine's Newsdesk blog that began in January. There, they've posted pieces of a 1969 account of watching the moon landing in Central Park and Lou Gehrig's first appearance in their pages, in 1927. Which is great for those of us who aren't supposed to be getting lost in the depths of those DVDs.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: U.S. National Archives, 1950, via Flickr.

Comments

[Charles]

The Complete New Yorker (on C.D.s) is one of the greatest gifts that I've ever received. That was like five years ago. Now, I want the portable hard drive edition that plugs into U.S.B. ports.
I'm glad they've launched this blog; I can't believe they hadn't thought of it before, though.