When Domino recently closed its doors forever (huge sob) our knee-jerk reaction was to go out and collect the magazine's entire four year run. We have since reconsidered and have gone online to download our favorite inspirational photos from years past. We've got a few tricks up our sleeve when you're faced with the huge task of paring down a magazine collection and how to organize what's left...
- You'll first want to ask yourself, how often do you refer back to your magazines? Do you go back to the same five or do you rarely revisit them? If you never go back to your old magazines--ask yourself, why are you holding onto them? If you're hanging onto them because you think they'll be worth something someday (National Geographic) consider the fact that unless they're in pristine condition they won't be valuable to collectors.
- If you're hanging onto magazines for sentimental reasons, consider scanning in a handful that represent the best of the bunch and Craigsist or Freecycle the remainder.
- You've probably realized when you do refer back to your magazines, they're not searchable. If you're like us, you have a difficult time remembering which issue a particular article was in. Now when we get a magazine, we rip and read. As we're going through the magazine, we'll tear out the articles that interest us and recycle the rest of the magazine. Any article worth saving goes into a binder with categorized tabs (which is a cinch to refer back to when we're looking for something).
- Another tip that helps us out is to have retention guidelines for our magazines. One rule that is easy to follow is for every new issue that comes in the door, the old one goes out. Also keeping your magazines in a shallow tray and once the tray becomes full, recycling a few at a time.
- Don't forget to take your magazines to book clubs and trade or give away your old issues.
- Think about dropping off your old issues at a laundromat or free clinic before sending them to the recycling bin.
What are some rules you have with your magazine collection? Do you have some easy ways to eliminate old issues from your space? How do you organize the remainder?
Additional Ways to Organize Your Magazines
- Inspiration... Making Your Books Functional
- How Do You Control Magazine Clutter?
- Magazine Stack Nightstand
[Image from Jessica Fulkerson]
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Shaw's Original Fir...
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forget the mags, i love the LAMP! where's it from? :D
Do we really need to shed our magazines? Looks like the economy is doing that for us. (RIP, Domino, Blueprint, House&Garden...)
Target circa 2007.
It can't be true - Domino? - I have every issue - this is not good
I rip out the pages I like and save them in a binder. The rest of the mag is recycled.
Ah, Vhision! You've missed the many boo-hoo posts and postings. Someone even created a blog:
http://savedomino.blogspot.com/
I love lamp. haha
I had collected several years of Arch Digest, Dwell, Metropolitan Home and random issues of other magazines. I have been working since the first of the year to rip out what is interesting. As an interior designer, I have to walk the fine line of having some ideas around to inspire me without becoming a packrat. I have created files by room and some titled "millwork", "stairs" and "accessories". As the article says, they need to be searchable. Going forward, I am dog-earing corners on things I find interesting when I first read the magazine and then purging magazines at the end of every month. Many times, when I look back at what I dog-eared, I don't even remember what caught my eye or I have researched the idea during the month and the article/photo is no longer necessary.
Add an electronic subscription to your current hardcopy subscription. Zinio.com offers 10 digital issues of Metropolitan Home for $8.00. When I am done reading the hard copy, I recycle and keep the digital copy for future reference and inspiration.
It is cheaper than a magazine caddy, takes up no space, and creates no clutter.
I keep my favorites in clear plastic page protectors inside a three-ring binder. That way I can easily reference or reorganize, and fit multiple-page articles into a single sleeve.
One great way to get rid of old magazines is to give them to design majors. Fashion majors have to use fashion magazine photos for lots of assignments, interior design majors LOVE any and all issues of shelter mags, and graphic design majors find the variety of fonts, formats, etc. in a variety of magazines useful.
Edit, edit, edit (the posts, not your mag collection).
I like to keep old magazines, because every time I move to a new place, I have completely different design challenges. Articles I overlooked before suddenly come in handy.
Plus, it's fun to giggle over some of the once trendy rooms in old issues. It's a cautionary tale.
A tip: some magazines have more resale value than you think. I learned this the hard way trying to buy old issues of Martha Stewart Weddings once I got engaged. I ended up spending quite a lot on ebay -- particularly to get the really early issues.
I rip out what I want from Domino and put it in my idea book. I then recycle the mag. Maybe the last issue of Domino will be kept intact as a memorial and stored away.
I don't subscribe to any mags now since Domino is no more (sigh). But, to people who do save their magazines and have collections, don't feel pressured to discard them.
Sassy magazine was first magazine I subscribed to from the premiere issue when I was 14. I stopped after a few years since it was changing (why it eventually died). My dad talked me into getting rid of my collection. This was before ebay etc. I kept the premiere issue and the issue with Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love on the cover. I wish I had just taken them to university with me and said I had gotten rid of them. Sigh.
I too am a magazine junkie. And while I've spent years saving issues of Readymade, Outside, Men's Journal and other invaluable titles, it was getting too much.
On weekends now I find it therapeutic to pull out a stack, scan the cover and specific articles with recipes, destinations or inspirations that I can refer back to.
Since they're saved in pdf form, they're amazing to look at in Coverflow on a mac. A spotlight keyword search will draw up all titles with say Los Angeles, if that's what I'm looking for.
An added plus is being able to take them with me when I travel.
I wish I had the willpower to purge old design mags as ruthlessly as I should. I have more back issues than I care to remember. I find that some (e.g. Coastal Living) are easier to get rid of than others (e.g. House & Garden). I have subscriptions and back issues going back for a decade. I think it is easier for me to let go of the older issues than the later ones. My tastes have changed over that time and this has also helped to let go of things.
I don't think a clipping file would work for me. I would keep too many articles. I have known people who have made binders of design articles only to find that a single big binder takes up more space than a year or two's worth of issues of a mag. I find mags themselves to be fairly compact.
I keep them all, and I like it that way~!
i'm definitely keeping them and storing them all away.
Funny that occupant222 mentioned Sassy, as that was also the 1st magazine I subscribed to and collected. As the magazine changed over the years, I canceled my subscription & eventually got rid of all the old mags. To this day, I regret that decision! I have nothing but fond memories of that magazine & very much wish I could flip thru their old issues from time to time.
I'm a librarian, so I have a somewhat different viewpoint on this.
At my old job, at an academic library, I sold the back issues of a lot of technology magazines from the collection for literally thousands of dollars. (There are agencies that buy things like that to resell to library startups that want to develop their archives, for example.)
But in my current job in a public library, I am in charge of donated materials. We are offered National Geographics at least five or six times a year, and they are junk to us. (We have bound editions going back to the 1930's, and we are usually offered things within the last decade.) Nobody wants them, except SOMETIMES crafters (to cut) and schools (for the kids to cut.)
Certain craft and other "practical" magazines may have some kind of collector following, but most things are not "investments", so recycle them with impunity!
I hoard only my Fine Gardening and craft magazines, and I periodically go thru them page by page, rip out and keep things I really think I want, and recycle (or give away) the rest. Then periodically I purge the clippings, too!
Craig's List!
Every year of so I post an add for a free helping of design or cooking magazines by the bag. I always manage to give them away. One year I got 15 emails for Dwell. I guess I should have sold them. On second thought, maybe not, most of the URLs were academic and the folks picking them are usually really grateful grad students.