Smart PR

Google and The New York Times are engaged in smart PR. They are digitizing the Times’ photo archives, some 5 million images dating back to the late 1800s. The effort will make available pictures that have been stored in file drawers for many decades and were nearly lost when the Times had a water pipe break that flooded its basement. This store of photographs along with their captions is an immense historical resource for the paper and for the world. The Times already has put out a special edition in which it printed long-ago photos of California.  Look for more editions on different topics in the future. It would be interesting and valuable if more newspapers put their photo archives online, especially periodicals like the Daily http://www.nydailynews.com/News, which prided itself on being a picture tabloid.