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The New York Times Archival Library

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tommy Bracken, head of the archive, working in 1942

The New York Times Archival Library, also known as "the morgue",[1] is the collected clippings and photo archives of the New York Times (NYT) newspaper. It is located in a separate building from the main Times offices, in the basement of the former New York Herald Tribune on West 41st Street.[2]

The archive was first created as a clipping library and morgue file under the direction of Carr Van Anda in 1907.[3] Images were later added when the NYT art department's photo library was merged with the clippings collection.[2] The archive stopped collecting clippings in June 1990, as the NYT use of electronic archives increased.[2] Over time, sections of the collection have been sent to other repositories like the New York Public Library and the University of Texas as the newspaper relied on it less. The archive is now solely run by Jeff Roth, although other newspaper employees are digitizing the collections.[4]

The morgue is also where the NYT holds its advance obituaries, written in preparation for the event of someone's death.[2]

As of November 18, 2018, the images from the library are hosted on Google Cloud Platform.[5]

Further reading

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  • O'Neill, Claire (June 7, 2012). "What Lies Beneath The New York Times? A Lively Morgue And Its Lonely Keeper". NPR.org. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • Livingstone, Jo (14 April 2017). "The Art of the New York Times Obituary". The New Republic. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • "Photos Inside the "Morgue" of the New York Times". Untapped New York. 25 February 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • Horwitz, Jane (11 May 2017). "Review | Fascinating 'Obit' explores the arcane art of celebrating the newsworthy life". Washington Post. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • McCann, Laura (2017). "The Whole Story: News Agency Photographs in Newspaper Photo Morgue Collections". The American Archivist. 80 (1): 163–188. doi:10.17723/0360-9081.80.1.163. ISSN 0360-9081. JSTOR 26356725. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • The tumultuous fifties : a view from the New York Times Photo Archives (1st ed.). Buffalo, NY: Albright-Knox Art Gallery in cooperation with the New York Times Photo Archives and Times History Productions, a division of the New York Times. 2001. ISBN 9780300088212.
  • Boissoneault, Lorraine. "These Never-Before-Seen Photos From "The New York Times" Offer a New Glimpse Into African-American History". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • The NYT Open Team (28 May 2020). "From Print to Digital: Making Over a Million Archived Photos Searchable". Medium. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • Vincent, James (9 November 2018). "Google is using AI to help The New York Times digitize 5 million historical photos". The Verge. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  • Storey, Samantha (10 February 2016). "You've Never Seen These Black History Photos Before". HuffPost. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
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References

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  1. ^ Bennett, Jessica (7 May 2012). "Inside the New York Times' Photo Morgue, A Possible New Life for Print". WNYC. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d Calderone, Michael (23 May 2007). "The Times Morgue Packs Up and Ships Out". Observer. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  3. ^ Hiltner, Stephen (14 April 2017). "Cultivating Serendipity: A Visit to the New York Times 'Morgue'". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  4. ^ Syckle, Katie Van (10 November 2018). "The Times's Capsule of History Goes Digital". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  5. ^ "The New York Times Digitizes Millions of Historical Photos Using Google Cloud Technology". The New York Times Company. 2018-11-09. Retrieved 2021-03-22.