[press: niemanlab]

When Mike Blinder acquired Editor & Publisher magazine in October 2019, he inherited boxes of back issues that he put in a climate-controlled storage unit near his home in Tampa, Florida.  Leafing through the old — and sometimes brittle — pages of the journalism trade publications, he noticed a reference to microfilm access to the content. 

Blinder, a media consultant for more than 40 years, says he turned detective trying to track down the missing E&P on microfilm. The odyssey would take him to past owners and bankruptcy documents before discovering that the canisters of microfilm had been purchased and given to the Internet Archive to digitize and make available to the public for free.

When Blinder called Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive and found out we had the microfilm for his back issues, he was very excited to find the microfilm was not only safe, but that the Internet Archive would digitize all of the issues at no cost to him. Blinder enthusiastically gave permission for the full 100-year history to be read and downloaded by anyone, anywhere – along with E&P’s International Yearbook and Market Guide. Going beyond the Internet Archive’s traditional lending system ensures it can be indexed by search engines and made maximally useful to readers and researchers.

“I just went nuts,” Blinder recalls of learning about the project earlier this year. “I read history all the time. The fact that content about this incredible industry was available to humanity was exceptionally exciting.”

The ability to research these archived issues has been truly exciting, especially for those looking up historical documents, many with a personal or family connection. Amy Levine is the daughter of the former publisher of sixteen small newspapers in Northern California. When Levine looked up the past issues featuring her father Mort and his legacy, she was all over it. “I loved it,” said Levine, “and I showed my father– he loved sharing his past accomplishments with me.”

Hiring a company to scan the stacks of print copies would have been a massive and expensive undertaking that Blinder says he didn’t have the funds to do. Turning microfilm into digital content is much easier and the process was underway at the Internet Archive at no cost to him.

“It was good news,” Blinder says. “[The press] is part of the constitution. Our founding fathers told us that we needed to exist.”

While Blinder says he thinks there is enough demand to charge for access to this collection of magazines, he’s glad the information is freely available for journalism students, scholars, and the general public.  Blinder plans to tell his colleagues in the media business about the newly established digital collection and says he’s confident there will be an audience for the material.

“There are a lot of people who study our industry. We are in such a crisis now,” says Blinder of the competition from social media and struggles of daily newspapers. Over the years, E&P has chronicled changes in the business during times of recession, war, and cultural change. It includes awards for publishers of the year and young journalism professionals. Blinder anticipates the collection will appeal to people who want to look back at past trends.

“There are a lot of people who study our industry. We are in such a crisis now”

Mike Blinder, Editor & Publisher magazine

Since purchasing E&P last year, Blinder and his wife, Robin, have been able to turn the operation around, doubling its revenues and tripling its audience.

“We love journalism. We want to talk about journalism as a business,” Blinder says. “We are an independent voice for the industry.”

Now you can read 100 years of history in the archive of Editor & Publisher magazine.

Since 1970, America has lost over 90% of its dairy farms. Preserving the rich cultural history of our nation’s dairy farmers has gone from important to mission critical. As one small step on a challenging path, the Internet Archive is honored to partner with the American Guernsey Association, the official breed registry organization for Guernsey dairy cattle in the United States. For over a century, AGA has published the Guernsey Breeders’ Journal, the official publication of the AGA and the longest-running publication of any American dairy breed organization. Working with staff on two continents, the Archive has been able to digitize and make available to the public AGA’s entire collection of Journal issues, dating back to 1910.

The Internet Archive is thrilled to partner with the AGA by making back issues of Guernsey Breeders’ Journal available for public access. The partnership offers something for everyone – farmers, industry, historians, and Guernsey-lovers alike. By digitizing the issues at no cost to AGA, and hosting them on the Archive’s own servers, AGA is free to distribute the entirety of its magazine collection by pointing its website users to the collection on the Internet Archive, or even embedding links to the issues on its own website.

According to Robin Alden, Executive Director for American Guernsey, the partnership has been a long time coming. “This is something we have wanted to do for a long time, and I think it will be a huge benefit to our readers and to Guernsey fans.”

“By working together, the Internet Archive has made all of the digitized issues available to the public, to search engines, and back to American Guernsey for their use and preservation,” said Marina Lewis, the Collections Manager of the Internet Archive. “We hope all publishers will work with us to make back issues publicly available.”

According to Alden, the Journal is a critically important tool to reach out to AGA’s members and constituents. With almost 2,000 issues dating back to 1910, the Journal is an opportunity to provide plenty of great content to readers. In fact, a recent survey by AGA indicates that its members and constituents received critical industry information from the Journal, beyond just membership in the AGA. The survey results showed that over 90% of Guernsey enthusiasts surveyed rely on the Journal for their primary source of news on the breed and the industry. 

This is something we have wanted to do for a long time, and I think it will be a huge benefit to our readers and to Guernsey fans.

Robin Alden, AGA Executive Director

In addition to industry news, the Journal is also an invaluable research tool. Alden says she receives phone calls every year from students and members of animal husbandry organizations such as 4H with requests for research materials and data. Alden is able to direct students to the online collection at the Internet Archive (and soon the AGA website) so students can have free access to historical data and images for their projects.

Most importantly, the Journal supports AGA’s mission to expand the demand for Guernsey differentiated consumer products and deliver premium returns for producers and breeder members, with the goal of providing leadership, promoting programs, services, and technologies to ensure the integrity of the breed – while enhancing the value for its members, owners, and the industry. AGA also offers a variety of products and services, in addition to its breed registry. Among these are Golden Guernsey, a consumer-facing site that offers premium dairy goods from AGA’s network of Guernsey farmers throughout the United States and Canada.

For many readers, though, having such access to the Journal provides more than just facts and data; for many, having online access to the Journal offers a window to their past. According to Alden, many readers may have grown up on a farm or may now live internationally, and having this resource and being able to provide online access is huge. “We have a lot of members who want to be able to take a walk down memory lane, and they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do so.”