PAPER GLORY

Everything comes to an end. Even the sun will eventually stop shining. Seen in that light, it might seem like small potatoes that this is the last print edition of Delft Matters. In my closet hangs a T-shirt with a cassette tape printed on it. When I put it on and ask my children if they know what that object is, their eyes start to glaze over. No idea. They can’t imagine their father at the age they are now, crouched next to his boombox, listening to the Top 40 on the radio, peering at a paper printout from the local music shop showing the latest chart order of hits to be heard. And that this young version of their father then had to press the record and play buttons – simultaneously! – to record his favourite song on a cassette tape (preferably without any of the DJ’s yammering) so that he could play it endlessly afterwards. Will my children’s children ever see a paper magazine in the same way? Like a curious object from an ancient or extraterrestrial civilisation perhaps, with glossy pages that you can touch with your fingers but, strangely enough, nothing happens when you tap, swipe or pinch one of those pages. Oh, paper! When I started as a student reporter at the university newspaper Delta, it was always the magical highlight of the week. Seeing your article in print. Thousands of times. Stacks of them piled at the front door of each faculty. And, no joke, you then had to measure with a ruler how many centimetres of columns you had filled up so that the newspaper could pay you accordingly. ‘But we’ll continue digitally!’ shouts some optimist somewhere whenever a title discontinues in print form. That may be true, but something is lost along the way. Waiting on the doormat, having to be physically picked up, a format that lends itself better to hierarchy and photography than a small mobile phone. Do not underestimate the archival function of such a print magazine either. Of course, digital is easier to search. But the cupboard in my own home has some advantages over ‘on a US cloud service somewhere’, and God knows what could happen in the event of geopolitical conflicts, corporate takeovers, new digital standards, forgotten passwords, death or unpaid cloud service bills. This last print edition of Delft Matters. See how it shines. Hear how the pages rustle between your fingers. Press your nose against the cover and have a good sniff of that printing ink. And then store it in a nice place, for posterity and for things that pass.