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