Are the "Information Station" PDF articles too expensive?

[Anonymous]

Wayne,

Thank you for the clarification. You are correct, I wasn't aware of the arrangement(s) that had been made with the publisher.

Jim

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeglin

Wayne,

Thank you for your suggestion. However, I believe that the topic of this thread was a discussion regarding the high cost of converting documents into a searchable electronic format. Some other members voiced their frustration over the current market prices of $1.00 plus per page. We were willing to help you and your members by offering our services for under $0.10 per page. This is below our cost....

It has been my experince that most people are grateful when somebody offers to help.....

Jim

Jim,

We members recognize your position and thus are being careful because as stated in the previous poster, this forum is for Model Railroaders to talk about issues and is moderated by a company that controls the very material we are discussing related to the "Information Station"

It is my hope that indeed someone like Bergie will give you a direct answer as to your information pertaining to creating electronic copies at your price of .10 a page.

We are not "Ungrateful" however I imagine some of us who own at our homes a rather large collection of MR magazines that possibly may benefit from your services.

Have a GREAT day.

Lee

[Anonymous]

Just a business suggestion here,

This forum is provided for use by forum members by our hosts, a corporation that publishes magazines. Other than the forum administrators that stop in occasionally, no one here decides if, when or by whom anything is published by the corporation that has generously offered this site for our non-commercial discussions.

But since you just joined this forum today, perhaps you weren't aware of its purpose.

Wayne

[Anonymous]

Wayne,

Thank you for your suggestion. However, I believe that the topic of this thread was a discussion regarding the high cost of converting documents into a searchable electronic format. Some other members voiced their frustration over the current market prices of $1.00 plus per page. We were willing to help you and your members by offering our services for under $0.10 per page. This is below our cost....

It has been my experince that most people are grateful when somebody offers to help.....

Jim

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeglin

Hello,

I think we can help...we can scan these documents and provide them on CD/DVD as PDF's for under $0.10 per page. Please see http://www.DigitalDocumentsLLC.com for additional information about our company and capabilities, or you can email me directly at [e-mail].

Jim

You will have to contact Kalmbach, they are the owners of the material we are discussing here. I wish you best of luck!

[Anonymous]

Perhaps you might take your business proposal to company officials rather than using this forum to promote your commercial interests.

Wayne

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I think we can help...we can scan these documents and provide them on CD/DVD as PDF's for under $0.10 per page. Please see http://www.DigitalDocumentsLLC.com for additional information about our company and capabilities, or you can email me directly at [e-mail].

Jim

[Anonymous]

I'd be willing to pay a bit more in annual subscription charges to have a set number of downloads available. All that really needs to be done is to link my sub with my password. Might even generate more subs. I'd make sure there was a Trains-MR linkage for those who sub to both. The current fee is way too high. I could by the mag from a used dealer for a whole lot less.

[Anonymous]

In my years of contributing to MR (around 20), they have always required a signed release form for material, giving them the rights to the material. I don't know if they did this before the early 1980's. So much of the more recent material published would be covered.

Bob Boudreau

[Anonymous]

It is my understanding that we are permitted to use drawings for "Personal" use. This is a example of a feature that has not appeared recently in MR.

I also point to the number of "Beginner's Articles" that have appeared with photos and descriptions written by the author that most certainly will be replicated alot across the hobby as readers adopt the techniques for own layouts etc.

I am horrified by the prospect of having to track down estates and Authors for permission to "reprint" a previous work into a CD format which is basically a storage medium for PC's no different from a hard disk which holds the PDf's from the current information station articles.

Also previous MR Issues contain much information that probably will be lost to time. They also contain advertisements, pricing, coupons and photos from companies that no longer exist execpt in history and in the hearts of those that actually worked for them.

Issues that were published for profit in 1940 cannot possibly contain any great monetary value. The real value is in the works within such a old article on paper that will probably deteriote and never be seen by current modelers who are growing up.

Even the technology used back then will assist a novice modeler who may not yet be able to afford DCC systems. The costs of DCC Control already is almost the entire cost in the several hundereds of dollars of setting up and construcing a layout of any size.

Perhaps the sheer cost of securing permissions across several decades of work to be replicated onto CD's for the preservation of the hobby as well as the benefit of having access to the entire MR from day one makes the venture very difficult.

[Anonymous]

While a CD of the entire run of MR would be facinating as well as helpful, compiling CD volumes often goes beyond the mechanics of scanning and duplicating CD's, especially in older publications. There is usually a copyright issue that must be addressed, especially since the Tisani vs. New York Times suit in which it was ruled that a publication may not reprint an author's previous work in an electronic format if that author has retained the copyright. and has not given consent to republish it.

Many publications didn't have a strict policy of signing contracts for every article in the past and are limited in their ability to republish. I don't know MR's policy of accepting articles for publication, but unless a contract was signed or it was a work for hire, an author has a legal claim to rights for the work and the magazine must ask for and receive permission prior to publication. Often this involves the arduous task of tracking down long-lost authors or their estates.

In fairness to the authors, it was generally understood that they were selling first North American serial rights to the article or work which allows a publication to print it one time, not to use it in any manner they wish forever.

Wayne

[Anonymous]

what is the "Information Station"

[Anonymous]

I saw the Information Station articles - and I began to get excited. But not for reprinted articles, and not at that price. Plus, there's no way (that I've found yet) to tell what articles are in which package. I might HAVE the articles.

Boy, THAT'D tick me off - spending $15 to download a 40-50 page PDF file and flip through it going : read that, read that... that one too...

Rob

[jfugate]

Oh yes, and one thing that likely isn't going to be obsolete soon is the internet. As more broadband users appear, it's going to get to the point that you can get your electronic medium (movies, music, documents) all online in a few moments.

Then you can store it however you like, including paper for documents, if you prefer!

[jfugate]

Cacole:

Sure technology will change ... you can bet on it. But PDFs, CDs and DVDs are pretty entrenched now, so it will take quite a while for the shift to occur. Witness VHS tapes to DVDs. DVD technology has been around for almost a decade and only now is the shift really gaining momentum.

And they're still selling VHS players in the stores .... although I'm seeing more and more dual players, with both VHS and DVD capability, for under $100. Next will be the combo VHS/DVD recorders, and you will be able to copy VHS to DVD for yourself.

In time it will all be DVD, but it's going to take another decade or so. But as to completely unreadable ... only when the material is available in other forms. Even though 8 tracks are obsolete now, you can get the material in other forms today. It would be time to replace the 8 track tapes by this time anyhow because they would have been worn out. There's not much in this old world that lasts forever, even good old paper.

And some things will never go out of style, like paper books and magazines. They're just too darn convenient, and too cheap to manufacture. The volume economics will change as the electronic medium matures, but paper will never disappear completely.

[cacole]

You can get every issue of National Geographic as a CD set, so why not other publications? National Geographic's set was made by a contractor, but certainly takes up much less storage space than the paper copies. After the initial set, each year's issues are now being released on a separate disk, so you can keep your library current.

One fallacy to CDs or DVDs, however, is changes in technology. Will computers of the future be able to read today's CDs and DVDs? Sony, Phillips, and a couple of other companies are already experimenting with a new DVD drive and disk format that is expected to make current ones obsolete in a few years. The same holds true for PDF files -- there's no guarantee that Adobe will stay in business or that the PDF format won't become obsolete and those files completely unreadable some day.

[Anonymous]

Based on the PDF scanning prices I posted from here:
http://www.bgscanning.com/pricing.htm

A ten page PDF file costs MR $1.20 to get scanned and converted to PDF. Then I think they charge $1.25 for burning the CD and a jewel case.

Now...MR charges $5.95 for an 11 page download article:
http://store.yahoo.com/kalmbachcatalog/mrpdf009.html

[Anonymous]

Approximately 15,000 letter-sized, black and white page Tiff’s will fit on a single CD. A DVD can hold approximately 125,000 pages.

I think thats more than a years worth of issues on one CD. You could get several years issues on one CD and perhaps a decade of issues on DVD.

And if done right you could sit in front of your large screen TV flipping through your DVD "pages" on your comfy couch. You would be the ultimate armchair model railroader.

Here are some price quotes I pulled up.
http://www.bgscanning.com/pricing.htm

[PennsyHoosier]

Running this forum is very inexpensive. Once set up, the maintenance is minimal. All it takes is a modicum of oversight by the administrators (which they do very well, I might add). It is a very different thing to produce and distriibute text or pdf files. Not harder--just different. The question is one of what the sponsoring institution would like to do. Who is your audience? What do they want? What will they pay? Seems to me the disjuncture is between the second the third questions I posed..

[cisco1]

Yes, the current offering of PDF files is pricey. Yes, I'd love to get MR on CD. Yes, I'd be willing to pay up to $10.00 per year of publication (if they could be bought in 1 to 5 year lots). No, I won't get rid of my old MR back issues without a fight!
Chris

[Anonymous]

Eric......Are you hearing or seeing this, perhaps you need to get with "Powers To Be" and pass this along to them.

[Trainnut484]

I too would be for past issues of MR be scanned to CD. A great space saver!

Take care,

Russell

[Anonymous]

Geoff,

Good point. While I would love the MR collection on CD, I probably won't dispose of my collection of back issues (dating back to the 60's) either! Too many good memories. While I would love the CD's for looking up specific articles, there's something about pulling an old issue out and sitting in a comfy chair leafing through the pages.

[lyctus]

I am dissapointed at the cost of the PDF downloads, and knowing that somewhere in the bookshelf I have got most of the content already in the back issues of MR, but for say , a couple of dollars, I would use the service for a themed collection of wanted info.
I would really like to be able to purchase the MR collection at reasonable price on CD, wow , that would be good.Access to all articles would be a breeze.
BUT, would I dispose of the huge collection of MR back issues ??? I sorta think not. Heck, have I got a problem !!!

[Anonymous]

We get to use this whole darn website and forum for free, well, free of $$, but not free of advvertising exposure which has value to Kalmbach and the other sponsors. It is kept in a tasteful balance, if you have pop-ups turned off. I think the PDFs ought to be free too, but to make it fair, it should come with a message from a sponsor that helps to defray the costs. When we buy the printed magazine, we are only partly paying for the cost of publication. Half or more of the $$ you spend on magazines goes to support your Local Hobby Shop, some goes to shipping, some to the publisher. The vast majority of the cost of putting out a magazine is supported by advertisers. I think its just fine to attach an ad to the PDFs and make them free to download. I read the ads in the magazines and always learn somethinf new. Most magazines published in the last 15 to 20 years were created digitally, NOT from paste and paper layout. The magazines are ALREADY in digital format!!!!!!!!! What conversion??? Most printers use PDF, or a compatable file easily converted with a few mouse clicks.

MR by the year , or in sets by the decade, YES YES YES, I have most of them from 1950 to the late 8os, and starting up again about 2000, I would love to have an indexed full set, I would gladly pay a hundred bucks, or maybe even 149.95 for the full set from the very begining.

[Anonymous]

Paying $15 to download a PDF article does seem a might steep on the surface, but there are probably good business reasons for Kalmbach selling them at this price. This is not a question of getting current content scanned because it's already in electronic format anyway. But to be truthful, scanning older, printed copy into electronic form does take a lot more time and resources than common sense would seem to indicate, and it's not as trivial an exercise as we might think.

Having said that, the idea of selling PDF files doesn't really stand up to muster in today's electronic market place. Railway Modeller, the largest British railmodelling mag has included CDs with article, editorial and how-to content in it's December issues over the past few years. And if you go to:

http://www.finescalerr.com/

you'll find "the only major publication in the world offering identical versions both in print and online. " (their words, not mine).

Point being that charging for downloadable article content is just not the right thing to do these days. It's too easy to obtain what we need in other, much less expensive ways.

[Anonymous]

That's true -- a lot of the new books from Kalmbach are nothing more than collections of articles. Fine if you don't happen to have those back-issues in your collection, but not so good if you do.

At least they're still producing some books with new material...

[Anonymous]

It's the same thing with most of the books I have bought from Kalmbach. Nothing new, just collections of past articles and stories from the magazine. I have 5 Kalmbach books and I am extremely disappointed in the content. I bought them looking for new and additional info. The pdf's are the same thing-old news.

[Anonymous]

Yes.