From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:51:47 -0500

So an issue of the New Yorker from this fall (the double issue Oct
29/Nov 5 with Mitt getting a tattoo on the cover) went missing, and we
went to get a replacement.  Seems not to have shown up at all.  Called
the New Yorker's subscription service number from the masthead in the
back of the magazine and found that it can't be done.  They now retain
only the current issue and two immediately previous and pulp
everything else.  If you want a back issue older than that, go to the
secondary market and good luck to you.

1.  Am I wrong that this is a big comedown in service over days of
yore?  I understand the $$ drivers, but for a magazine as
non-evanescent as the New Yorker, it still seems extreme.

2.  Makes me realize that while we've been focused on assuring
preservation of and access to e-versions of serial publications, we
may be approaching the brink of losing the old assurance of print
preservation.  Once upon a time, lots of libraries got things in
print, bound them carefully, cataloged them, shelved them, cared for
them lovingly.  Loving care for print materials is no longer something
you can count on (colleagues trying to give away books at the point of
retirement are getting some rude awakenings around me) and when people
switch from p- and e- to e-only, there may well be things that just
get lost.  Reminds me a bit of the great loss of print books in the
Catholic church in the 1960s when Latin went out and mountains of
stuff got trashed, replaced by mimeographed booklets.  It's actually
hard to find those old liturgical books now.  Same of the New Yorker
in 50 years?  Or Popular Mechanics?

Jim O'Donnell