The New York Times: The Lively Morgue

The New York Times, the vaunted newspaper known as one of the most trusted news sources in the world, has joined Tumblr. Dubbed The Lively Morgue, the Times‘ picture library was originally part of the art department, not the news department. Once it was consolidated with the newsroom clipping file, however, it came to be called the morgue. Explanations differ as to the origins of that name, but it’s safe to say that the clippings were originally biographical and kept close at hand in case a subject dropped dead around deadline, requiring an instant obituary. If The New York Times posted 10 new archival pictures every weekday on Tumblr, just from their print collection, they wouldn’t have the whole thing online until the year 3935. To their best estimate, the archive contains 5-6 million prints and 300,000 sacks of negatives.