After nine years of The New York Times’ ArtsBeat—a blog devoted to arts and culture coverage—the paper has announced its blog’s closure.

“ArtsBeat came to life on April 27, 2007, when the Times was still based on West 43rd Street, and our digital publishing systems were less nimble than they have become,” writes editorial assistant Daniel McDermon in the 23,231st and final post. “In those nine years, the features that made the blog such an appealing alternative to our traditional publishing tools—agility, the ability to embed digital content, and a chance to use a livelier voice—have largely been absorbed into the rest of our work.”

McDermon closed this last post with “Ballad of the ArtsBeat Blog” from Fred Landau, who was a regular reader and frequent commenter—he has left over 4,000 comments—of ArtsBeat posts. The Times will still continue to publish arts and culture coverage, but on the website and its apps at nytimes.com/arts. Its print column, Arts, Briefly, will also continue.

In addition, although the ArtsBeat blog is closing, don’t fret: the content will still remain online and found through searches!

Related news: Speaking to the “demise” of the ArtsBeat blog, Kait Howard writes at the Melville House Books blog, “One foreseeable result ... may be the loss of a community of readers who frequented the blog. ... As in our mourning the end of Bookslut, it’s worth remembering here that blogging was once an art of its own. Like so many others the Times meant to capitalize on that art. But things have changed.”