Are you Stockpiling Old Magazines?

Some of us love our magazines so much that we save them. Not that there is anything wrong with that—if you have the space to store them and you look at them again.

Those of us of a certain age remember stacks and stacks of mustard-colored National Geographic magazines stored in the basement because the photographs inside were so amazing that tossing them in the trash seemed sinful.

If you grew up in the pre-Internet, pre-Google Dark Ages, you saved magazines for a few reasons.

• For reference (school or work). Back in the day, to read back issues of a magazine, we had to go to the library, in person (!), fill out a slip at the desk, and wait for the librarian to retrieve the items from storage. Sometimes instead of a physical magazine, you were handed microfiche, a film that you viewed with a special device.
• Our mothers saved magazines to be cut up for school projects, such as illustrating book reports. Some of us inherited the “just in case” gene.
• Another reason we saved magazines is that they were not available at libraries. I am referring to niche magazines published for a limited readership, such as those for hobbies.

Nowadays, you can find most—if not all—magazines online.

If you find yourself with stacks of magazines that you are saving “just in case” and need to free up some space, check your local library, including the networks it belongs to, to see if the periodicals you like are stored. Also check the publisher’s website to see if you can get access through your subscription.

Why clutter up your precious space when the magazines you would be interested in looking at again can be obtain elsewhere?

Photo: Pixabay