From The Nation: America's founders understood the First Amendment would be worth little without a postal system that encouraged broad public participation in America's "marketplace of ideas." Thomas Jefferson called for a postal service that allowed ideas to "penetrate the whole mass of the people." Along with James Madison, he paved the way for a system that gave low-cost mailing incentives to small publications.
I'm not sure why it strikes me as so odd to be using a blog to suggest that people pick up a magazine, considering our entire collection is paper-based and this blog is in fact a blog of a paper magazine.
This month's Harper's (May 2007, unfortunately not on their website yet, if you can't get it on a newsstand, just wait a couple of weeks) has an article on just that digital/paper dissonance, and presents an incredibly in-depth view of the Prelinger Archive in San Francisco. Never have I been so inspired to take our entire collection and organize it according to an esoteric whim, then continue to reorganize it ad infinitum.
out now