28 Comments
Previously unavailable Spec
Earlier this morning, our august print newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator, announced that they have put a limited number of their archives online. Until today, Spec’s archives have been read by a very small number of people—smaller, even, than the number of people who read contemporary editions. Why? Spec’s archives have only been available in microfiche in Butler or bound volumes in the Spec office. Now they’re searchable and online, and therefore much easier to use.
This is great news for people interested in reading about our history, so long as their interest in Columbia’s history is limited to the height of the Cold War and, for some reason, the 1991–1992 academic year. Granted, those years include some pretty important events—like the 1968 riots—but it’s far from a complete history.
Spec is still $24,000 short of putting the whole paper online. In the meantime, those microfiche readers aren’t so bad; they make research seem way more like serious business.
Spec via Spec
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28 Comments
@honestly Yo, bro, I would not buy the NY times, but like, I haven’t seen it in Lerner, it’s actually disappeared. And Speccest, seems like you’re defending spec drunk too, that’s pathetic. I prefer to drunkenly bash Spec’s honor.
Anyway, man, I’m sorry about my comment last night. I took way too many shots and half an ounce of coke in the frat dorms. I didn’t mean Spec sucks, I meant Spec sucks ass.
@Speccest Exactly! I was insulting myself, Conor, no need to hate.
@honestly you so mad bro. Let’s be real.The spec or whatever they call themselves is pretty worthless. No one reads spec except their own writers. Why would I pick up Spec , when I could go buy a NYT newspaper and get REAL news. Spec, stop sucking.
Bwog, your new design sucks like whore with no teeth.
@Hey freshman You can get the NYTimes in Lerner each morning for free, so no need to buy it. I just saved you however much money the Times costs (I don’t know, because I read it online). You’re welcome. Maybe to repay me, you can stop being a dick.
@Speccest Yeah, Spec isn’t in Ithaca, so there are other places to go for local news. Thus: 1. Suck it, Cornell. 2. A big portion of Spec’s readers is made up of faculty, administrators, alumni, maybe a bigger portion than in Bumblefuck, NH. 3. Unless readership has totally fallen off a cliff, there’s no way to argue that Spec’s not being read. The numbers are (or, at least, were) there. 4. Drunkenly defending Spec’s honor on Bwog is a pathetic pastime. 5. The paper looks, in the words of Tony the Tiger, grrrrrr-eat. 6. I could really go for a Heights marg right now.
@Speccie Above all else, Spec is a community. What is Bwog? What does it promote? Spec provide campus and city news, a wide range of opinion, arts and entertainment, and student perspectives on the world around us. What does Bwog provide? Pictures of chalk around campus? Room for people to bash each other and each other’s institutions?
You may not have noticed, but Spec doesn’t say ANYTHING about Bwog. You know why? Spec doesn’t even care. Bwog’s existence is irrelevant to Spec and the work that we do. Bwog isn’t nearly on the same level of development, commitment, or talent that Spec has. We have a six figure endowment for a reason. We were able to finance this digitization project for a reason – we are professionals.
Call it what you want, “sophomoric” if you so please, but you fucking love our archives and you are impressed. Spec has made its mark on Columbia since 1877, growing with the university. Bwog has simply created division.
@Anonymous professionals? jesus. take yourselves less seriously. yes, bwog can get a little mean, but that is sometime a good thing. being super positive about everything, all rah rah women’s rugby, check out our FOOTBALL SUPPLEMENT all that bs…that’s not Columbia.
@Anonymous I say this as someone who is quite fond of the sports section, but why is it seemingly the only section you read in the Spectator?
@Ew Bwog, I know you’re into the whole “We don’t care about our content or reporting” thing, but anyone who’s talked with one of your senior editors knows that’s not true. When you pull an internal coup over editorial direction, you can’t claim you’re not invested in your product, and that’s okay! // That said, Speccie, I know you’re raising six figures a quarter, but using the word “professional” in the Internet comments is like mentioning Barack Obama’s birthplace in a room full of Tea Partiers. You gave the troll that wrote the first post the response they were looking for the whole time.
@Ew But to get back to what matters, Bwog, I’m going to quote some BW at you: “You’re kind of an ass. The only problem is, you tend to think it makes you “cool” or “unique.” The laziness-coolness correlation was much stronger back in high school, but here your laziness just ticks off your classmates. Mostly because you’re taking half the credits but will still get an offer from a bank or consulting firm after graduation and go on to make hundreds of thousands of dollars as you spend your days sending inappropriate emails to your co-workers about how you are “so gonna tap” that hot new hire in HR.”” // Oh right! Consulting! Isn’t that something the pubs can agree on? Spec, Bwog, why don’t you all just go back to freaking out about how to get an offer at Booz while you chain-smoke at St. A’s? Get out of the comments.
@Anonymous Sounds like u care bro.
@Vagina Bwog sucks.
@Disappointed I don’t know when representing the voice of students turned into embodying the worst trolls among us. This rich historical archive of one of the best student papers in the world is available free of charge thanks to huge investments of time and money by Columbia students, alumni, and staff, and a true voice of the students of this university would celebrate both the accomplishment of our own and the opportunity to look firsthand at history as told by our predecessors. To deny the value in that is a slap in the face not just to those involved in this project, but to everyone who came to this school to take part in a culture of intellectual curiosity. High school bullies are best left in high school.
You can do better.
@CC agreed completely
@Speccie Yes, I’m a Speccie. No, I don’t want to get involved in Spec/Bwog mudslinging. Just want to point out one very cool fact that the post doesn’t mention: The text of the archives is entirely searchable! That means if you want to find any Spec story between 1953 and 1985, or between 1991 and 1992, that mentions “bureaucracy,” just search the term and you’ll get every one. It’s pretty awesome.
@Conor “Now they’re searchable and online, and therefore much easier to use.”
@Internal strife! Where’d your bitchy comment go, Conor?
@Speccie Thanks for adding the sentence about searchability! Much appreciated.
@Anonymous it was there since the beginning
@CC the problem with this is that there’s no verifiability since bwog doesn’t really print corrections of any sort … i.e. i have no way of knowing whether or not that was really there or not
@Also a Speccie here And I don’t know what Spec/Bwog mudslinging the other Speccie was talking about, because Spec is not participating and has never participated in the so-called “mudslinging,” except perhaps as individuals in comments on posts like this one. Spec has never written a post or an article suggesting that Bwog is worthless, that nobody reads it, that it’s stupid, that it should be turned into a three-story Pinkberry, etc. Never. Bwog says those sorts of things about Spec on almost a weekly basis. It’s easy to make fun of a publication and, for Bwog at least, just as easy to forget that you are talking about the hard work of real people who share this campus with you. //
The only time Bwog ever pretends to care about community is for the 24 hours after someone on campus dies. Other than that, they take every opportunity to promote division among students for the sake of their own pageviews, intentionally trying to divide the community they occasionally claim to care about. Whether they’re writing about Spec, Barnard, fraternities/sororities, or anything else, their angle is — without exception — “how can we start a fight? Who can we put down? Who is not as good as us?” It’s hypocritical beyond belief, and I would say that Bwog and their writers should be ashamed, but they don’t seem to have any sense of shame in them. //
I put these //’s after my paragraphs since your shitty redesign is erasing line breaks.
@The Dark Hand you are so fucking mad right now.
May be spec would suck less if speccies could into satire
@Anonymous Yes because alex jones is a miserable person with poor taste
@The Dark Hand I am glad Bwog has decided to weigh in on this important campus issue of spec sucking. This is why Bwog, although still kind of evil, is not as evil as the Columbia Spectator.
@lame how you’ve mentioned spec like 4 times this week. why don’t you get your own stories and reporting
@Oh, Bwog Speaking of “old news”…
@lol “Sophomoric” is a good choice of word, because it perfectly describes your near-constant attacks on Spec. Has Spec/Spectrum ever even responded once? Why is this attempt to incite a publications war so one-sided? And if Spec is so terrible, why are you constantly going out of your way to report on everything it does/insult it?
Get over yourselves, Bwog. And also, your redesign sucks.
@U MAD BRO? Bwog… I know how painful it must be to lose 90% of your readers by a massive fuck up of an “update”, but taking it out on the Spec’s admirable effort is more than low.