But what about the archives?

I am sad about TimesSelect going away.

Let me explain. For many years I've been paying for Nanna's Sunday Times subscription. For most of those years home delivery wasn't available in Granolaton. Every month my credit card statement would have a little reminder of just how far out in the boonies I'm living. Yes, I can read it online (and I do), but it's not the same as having an actual paper along with my coffee in the morning.

Then Times Select came along. I got access to it for free, thanks to the paper subscription that I paid for (and that up until then had just been making me bitterer and bitterer). And sure, the columnists, whatever. But, the ARCHIVES! The search tools really sucked, but still. No nickel-and-diming per article. Just click right on through. Oh, I loved that access. From my point of view: I never had to send in money I wasn't going to spend anyway, and I was suddenly able to read all sorts of stuff that had been behind a paywall before.

Now I can get the Sunday paper delivered to my door. I'm less angsty about giving the company money overall. But the new system for the website? Only opens the archives back to 1987. Which SUCKS!

UPDATE: Jody went and actually read the fine print; see her comment below. Those of us who send them money for the dead tree version still get our 100 archive articles per month, it turns out. YAY!

Strangely, I got a piece of junk mail from the Times this morning, the paper kind of junk mail, addressing me as "Dear Former Subscriber" and outlining the new set of paper-subscriber online benefits... the New Yorker has been good about applying discount offers to extend our current subscription, but I fear that the Times will start sending two papers, and double-billing, if I try to sign up for this $3.25 per week for 6 months offer.

Comments

[nate]

I realize this is a haves vs. have-nots answer, but doesn't GranolaU have archives through the library? It should be in ProQuest, if you guys get that.

Search interface still isn't great, but better than the web one...

[Jody]

I can get to the NYTimes archives through the VPN access, but I agree with Emma Jane, it was wonderful just to be able to cruise right on through from the regular old web. I immediately wondered what will happen to the archives between 1922 and 1987, myself....

[Jody]

Hey! They're keeping the searchable archives and the 100-articles-per-month deal for anyone with a paid subscription.

http://www.nytimes.com/membercenter/faq/timesselect.html#tendsqa4

Whew.