The New York Review of Books is a literary magazine that began publishing in the 1960s. Issued twenty or so times a year, it carries book reviews and articles on contemporary issues written by a large group of the finest thinkers and academics of our time. The magazine is a bi-monthly journey into the world of ideas, escorted by the best intellectual guides. Like all periodicals of this type, the problem is that great articles of ten years ago are still great, even if the periodical format means that they are never read again. What the N.Y.R.B. has done, however, is put their entire publication history on line. Subscribers have access to over 2,500 wonderful articles about books and thinking. If you like this sort of thing, it makes for some of the most amazing reading.
There are two preeminent American stamp periodicals- the American Philatelist published by the American Philatelic Society for over a hundred years, and the Collectors Club Philatelist published by the Collectors Club of New York. Both of these magazines are not now in their zenith but still publish excellent articles. In its hay-day of the 1950s and 1960s, the C.C.N.Y. was the finest philatelic publication in the world. A wonderful boon to the philatelic world would be to get these magazines online similar to what the New York Review of Books has done. Societies are always claiming no one wants to join, and yet they keep their finest assets locked in their libraries. Imagine what would be the recruitment value of access to hundreds of fine philatelic articles representing the flower of American philatelic scholarship over the last century. It’s even better than an A.P.S. mug.