Ebony and Jet Magazines Go Digital

Ebony and Jet Magazines have joined the 21st Century (and Google), and have gone digital.

According to the Chicago Tribune, prior to this deal, the magazine’s have kept their past issues in bound volumes and on microfilm, so if anyone needed to look up an old article, librarians would have to search through the company’s archives.

However, with a new deal in place, both Ebony and Jet will be made searchable on the technology giant’s growing database of publications. Johnson Publishing’s partnership with Google gives readers access to more than nine magazine titles and 20 million photographs documenting 63 years, reports the paper.

But, issues prior to 1960, they’re having a problem with because of the issues’ fragility or limited availability. So, the company is asking for help from their readers and librarians? “to pull stuff from the basement” to aid with the archiving.