Last week, Google Books launched a free, online, searchable magazine archive. Unlike books, old magazines are really difficult to keep in good condition; flimsy paper, cheap ink and bad binding from days of old result in few magazines standing the test of time — and that’s if people keep them at all. Magazine publishers these days keep digital versions of everything, of course, but that wasn’t true even a few decades ago. This is huge.
I’ve really only skimmed the surface of what Google have on file, but I’ve found a heap of weird and wonderful stuff:
How about the first ever edition of Popular Science from 1872? Or view the entire edition from February this year. There are 30 years of New York magazine, two years of Runner’s World, 23 years of Vegetarian Times, two years of Women’s Health, 14 years of American Cowboy, 53 years of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 10 years of Maximum PC or two years of Mac Life, 21 years of Log Home Living, 21 years of CIO and two years of Organic Gardening.
I think the best bit is that the text is all searchable, which will no doubt be the saviour of many uni students scrambling to do last minute essays (and probably journalists scrambling to do last minute research).
My only complaint is that they don’t seem to have a list of everything they’ve put up so far. You’ll just have to go hunting yourself to find more titles.
