So I’ve decided to stop updating the John F. Burns Archive. There are 180 posts in there– many of them are the complete text of his articles, mostly from the beginning of this second Gulf War we find ourselves in. I then decided to go to an “excerpts plus permalinks to free version on nyt.com” format. Now I am abandoning the project altogether. Here’s why:
- Technology and policy has passed it by. In September, the NYT launched TimesSelect, which gives anyone with a home subscription (or anyone who wants to pay an extra fee) access to 1,200 articles in their archive. Each article used to cost $2 each.
- Lots of people whined. But the fact is that the NYT fashioned a policy that tore away my rationale for the archive. And it was the second time they did it
- The first time was when they configured RSS permalinks that never required a login. And this is the second
The New York Times is providing tools to us internet artists. When I was putting together my Flickr photoset of images from my trip to China, I went in to the archive and read all of the Nicholas D. Kristof articles from the beginning of the Tiananmen Square protests. It was amazing. reading fresh daily news articles of an unfolding disaster. For free. Articles that sparked new art.
So that’s it for archive. Onward and forward to newer art.