Do you have old copies of the Reader lying around?

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

Thanks to support from the community, Bonner County Historical Society and the East Bonner County Library District, the Reader has begun archiving the editions that hit Sandpoint shelves each week from 2004 to 2012 — during the first iteration of the paper — and again from 2015 to present day. Soon the museum will have print copies safely stored in archival boxes and preserved for posterity.

However, several years ago I noticed a member of the public rifling around in our “morgue” area, where we keep past editions of the Reader. Despite the giant sign telling people not to access the morgue, this guy was casually pulling copies from the shelves. I asked what he was doing and told him to stop — that those were archived copies. He said, with chagrin, that he’d been pulling copies from those shelves for months. Apparently he thought it was his own personal stash of firestarter, and months of pillaging left no copies remaining of certain editions, sometimes an entire month at a time.

It wasn’t a malicious action — just a dumb, dumb mistake. But the damage was done and we’re now missing several dozen print editions from the morgue. 

This is where you come in, dear readers. 

I know this is a longshot, but are there any of you out there who have kept any of these old editions of the Reader? We’d like to supply the museum with a clean archival record that isn’t missing any copies. Since it will be an astronomical cost to pay our printer to replate and print a single copy of each of the missing editions, I’d like to start by asking our readers if anyone happens to have any of the following editions in their possession:

• 2017: July 20, Sept. 28, Nov. 2 and Nov. 9; 

• 2018: May 3, May 10, Aug. 16, Aug. 23, Aug. 30 and Dec. 20;

• 2019: Jan. 17, May 16, May 23, May 30, June 13 and Oct. 31;

• 2020: April 16, June 18, June 25, July 2, Sept. 4, Sept. 11, Sept. 18, Sept. 25, Nov. 12 and Dec. 17;

• 2021: April 22 and May 12

If anyone reading this possesses any of the editions listed above, I’m very interested in connecting with you so we can fill these massive gaps in our archives. In the meantime, please stay the heck out of our morgue. If you’re looking for firestarter, we always have dead copies from the week before. Just email and ask and I’d be happy to meet you to hand them over.

Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Contact [email protected] if you locate any past editions we’re missing and he’ll coordinate picking them up from you.