In light of the New York Times’s recently implemented firewall that limits online access to twenty articles per month, we’ve mentioned in the past how you can access the New York Times at the Davis Family Library in all of its newsprint-y glory, as well as online via our subscription to Proquest National Newspapers (albeit without color illustrations and graphics). We’ve also described how we’re keeping abreast of possible library subscription plans for unrestricted online access. Though the NYT has not budged on that one, individual digital subscriptions are available here for a discounted rate.

That said, if you long to share articles with full-color illustrations and graphics, I offer a seemingly wily, but completely legitimate alternative. Here’s a snippet from the NYT’s blog for teaching resources, The Learning Network:

Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit.

So, here’s the trick: since the NYT puts no limitation on articles accessed by way of a blog, you could create a “current events” blog at sites.middlebury.edu in order to share relevant NYT links, among others. Or, simply add links to your existing course blog. From there, your 21st, and 101st, articles will be available to all.

(Editor’s note: since the Web is always changing, what works today may not work tomorrow! Please send comments to me with your successes, or failures.)