Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Bricks vs. Clicks

Apropos of nothing in particular, a curious juxtaposition:

On the one hand, as part of the remodel and expansion of Morris Library, university officials open a time capsule originally placed in 1955 and find, among other things, three issues of Time magazine.

On the other hand, not long ago Time magazine put all of its back issues online in a searchable index available free to subscribers.



On the one hand, $41 million is the projected cost of the renovation that led to the discovery of three old issues of Time magazine

On the other hand, $15.12 is the cost of a six-month individual subscription to Time magazine, giving you unlimited access to their archives during that time.



On the one hand, you can now see the actual magazines retrieved from the capsule resting securely behind the glass of a display case in the library.

On the other hand, you can go online and read every article from those issues, as well as every other article from every other issue, at Time.com.





By the way, if you want to see an interesting example of an online time capsule, go to the Business Plan Archive and read all those overly ambitious business plans from the early dot com era, a time when nerd was undisputed king.

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