There's something about the human condition that encourages the act of hoarding. It most probably stemmed from the desire to store food items for survival back when we were all hunters and gatherers. Our basic food needs have been met by a great deal of the world's population for tens of centuries. That hasn't diminished human nature, though. It has left us with a need to possess and organize. I'd say today, each of us is the recipient of the same basic instinct although there are now multitudes of ways to express this inner desire.
When young, I was always much more interested in magazines than books as a reading source. I liked the continuation of periodicals. I perhaps should have considered the Library Sciences as a career. When my dad sold the old house, he had to get rid of decade upon decade of my old, National Geographic magazines. I found them interesting for their variety and range of world knowledge. I'd say that my thirst for travel was most probably a result of those yellow-bordered pages of text and stunning photographs.
Having instant access to old magazines intrigues me. Having them on the Internet opens up vast new options. For example being able to scan the words and phrase usage in Google's Books Ngram Viewer is awesome. (In the example link, I looked up the use of "urban crime" from 1840 to 2000. You may type in your own test words.)
Also, being able to view actual scanned images of certain publications is wonderful. For example, I wonder no more about the topics in the Popular Science magazine from the month in which I graduated from high school. The advertisements are nearly as significant as the articles. It somehow doesn't matter that I cannot touch the actual celluloses and fading inks; it's the information that's important.
Read this issue.
