Donnie

Donnie/Badger

I'm your favorite Minecraft knowledge haver || 27 || nd+disabled ๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€โšง๏ธ
You may know me as sniffanimal or wulvie from other webspaces.


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shel
@shel

These days, most people get their news through social media. Well, actually, most people get their news through reading headlines that get shared online with extremely urgent sounding captions guilt-tripping you for not retweeting it, but most people don't actually read the whole article. Because social media is such a fire hose, and it's so easy to internalize the "if you're not talking about this, you're part of the problem" mindset that was once utilized by activists to draw attention to ignored struggles and now is used by everyone for fucking everything, people get sucked into feeling like they must pay attention to second-by-second updates on every single thing happening everywhere in the world or else they're a bad person. As though merely paying attention to the news actually affects the news, inconsequential of any actual actionls

Fake tweet with someone insisting the world's largest chicken nugget is important

But you don't have to do that! There is a much healthier way to keep up with what's happening in the world and it's called Reading The Newspaper. Now, mainstream US newspapers do tend to carry biases and propaganda so you do need to think critically while reading them about what's being described, and not fall for things like the "exonerative tense." However, reading a few in-depth articles once a day, and then leaving it at that, is far healthier. And most of the time, unless you are second-by-second involved in a particular issue, you do not need to be getting second-by-second updates. Daily is plenty on most days.

But Shel! I don't want to pay for a newspaper subscription!

But reader! If you are American, your public library has likely already subscribed to a digital edition of at least one newspaper!

Odds are, they specifically offer free access to the New York Times, either through scans of the latest paper issues or through an infinite number of free 3-day passes to NYTimes.com. Most libraries, if they can only offer one newspaper, they will choose the New York Times even over their own local paper.

I went through the list of the most heavily populated cities and metropolitan areas in the US and collected direct links to the digital New York Times subscriptions for all of the followig libraries. Click on your city to read the New York Times for free right now with your free library card! Most of these cities allow you to make a free eCard on their website. Many of them, like Boston and Philly, allow anyone in the same state to sign up for a free eCard, not just city residents.

Atlanta ยท Austin ยท Boston ยท Charlotte ยท Chicago ยท Detroit ยท Denver ยท DC ยท Houston ยท Indianapolis ยท LA ยท NYC ยท OKC ยท Philly ยท Phoenix ยท PDX ยท San Antonio ยท San Diego ยท SF ยท San Jose ยท Seattle ยท Tampa

Don't see your city? It's probably because the population was too small for me to have checked your library's website, or because they don't subscribe specifically to the New York Times. However, all of the libraries I checked that didn't carry the New York times did carry free access to another newspaper's digital edition, or to a service like PressReader which provides access to many different newspapers. If you live in a small county which doesn't have either, you should look to see if the largest city in your state's library offers free eCards to state residents.

But Shel, I'm not an American, am I fated to doomscroll forever?

The massive mission creep-ridden public library is a chiefly American institution. Outside of the US, public libraries tend to be much smaller and more focused on books or research. With so many countries in the world, and so many languages I can't read, I obviously can't say if you have a public library which provides this service.

I will say that Vancouver and Toronto both have digital subscriptions to ahem the New York Times!! (Even in Canada!!!) and Manchester, UK does have a subscription to PressReader and some other newspapers. So definitely give your local library a check!

I hope this helps free you from doomscrolling!


squidcrusher
@squidcrusher

this is something I was doing for a bit back when I first saw this post. I actually really enjoyed it and learned a lot about things going on in my area/state that I would not have otherwise known about. I just kinda. ... adhd'd it and never went back.
But I think I might use some of my upcoming Internet free time to start reading the paper through my library again.


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in reply to @shel's post:

Oh yeah public libraries also often have jstor and proquest and stuff tho usually only the bigger ones. But like, everyone in Massachusetts gets free jstor and they don't even know?!

As a tangential question, are you aware of any decently sized US (or Canadian or UK) library that allows non-citizens to register (paid, if necessary)? My local german library has a dearth of english language fiction.

Non-Citizens: All public libraries in the US allow non-citizens to make library cards and access library services. It is both required by the ALA code of Ethics and by US law forbidding discrimination against immigrants.

Non-Residents: No public library in the US is going to allow a non-resident to make a library card as they are a tax funded service. It would be akin to allowing a US resident to apply for Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung. Some used to allow out-of-state residents to purchase access but this practice has been phased out by nearly every library system for various reasons that would be hard to explain. The Brooklyn Public Library did infamously start offering eCards to teenagers in states where library collections are censored, but this has resulted in a lot of controversy and legal battles between states. It's important to remember that in the US federal system laws can be very different between states and in some US stats it has become illegal for minors to access online library services, at all. (Yes, it's insane, I know.)

Library services depend on proxies to essentially route your traffic through the library network in order to get past vendor paywalls. A lot of these proxies won't allow non-US IP addresses to use them both because the services are only supposed to be the municipality/state that is paying for membership, and for Matters of National Security. The feds really want to surveil library usage patterns and it's a constant legal battle between libraries and the feds around this. The ALA opposes surveillance of library usage but different libraries have caved to different amounts since violating the law is a bad look for a government-funded service.

All That Said, there are some libraries which are not government institutions. The Providence Public Library is actually a non-governmental non-profit organization and does allow people with no connection to Rhode Island to purchase membership for $155/year. A subscription to the NYtimes is only $75/year though.