The recent post regarding having a large MR collection and storage space, etc. reminds me of some other magazines, such as Fine Woodworking, who have come out with annual CD or DVD collections of previous issues, made available for purchase.
I would think that many of us who become space-challenged by our "moldering" magazine collections would be willing to invest in space-saving and easy-to-access DVDs with as many previous years of MR on them as possible to scan and compile.
I am not sure if this is an in-house product or subbed out to a company with high speed facilities, but I would certainly be interested in DVDs of MR going back as far as possible!
This is one subscription (perhaps as a periodically- released set of discs over a certain time period- with an interest-generating initial offer MR subscriber discount) that I would gladly invest in- except for the fact that I would miss the "tactile" enjoyment of turning the pages of the past.
How about it, MR?????
cedarwoodronHow about it, MR?????
Okay.... rolling the six-sided "Thread Locked / Deleted" counter dice....
"C'mon Big Money, Baby needs a new pair of SOO's..."
Total is Six...
John
jwhittenOkay.... rolling the six-sided "Thread Locked / Deleted" counter dice....
LOL
You've got that right John!
Seriously, this has been asked before, more than once and everytime it has resulted in the thread being deleted or locked. It would seem MR does not want to talk about it and they don't want anyone else talking about it either...
It's a good idea, IMO, and as you say other magazines are going that way too, but you can't tell MR anything they don't want to hear.
JSperan, et al. - I am sure that Kalmbach/MR is tired of hearing this question posed at least once every six months, sometimes more often than that, over the course of the past half dozen years.
I would note that one of the editors did indeed respond in such a thread a couple of years back, indicating that such an endeavor would not be nearly as easy for MR as it might be for some other magazines. This particularly went to what actually could/would be included on the DVD. It would not be as simple as scanning each page and one of these threads got into details as to who wanted what (i.e. ads in or out, outdated subject matter, etc.) and when someone floated what seemed a logical price, a lot of the posters baulked once they found that it wasn't going to be $10-$20 per decade. Regardless, the editors themselves indicated that they had no intentions at that time of even considering such a move, which I can't blame them for since demand is likely much smaller than most think.
Perhaps that old thread should be dredged up and put on the still yet-to-come FAQ page.
CNJ831
There is hope, even the resistant-to-change National Geographic magazine offers all their previous issues on DVD's. It took them how many decades to eliminate the gold/white squiggly border on the cover by slowly removing small portions every few years?
CNJ831 comments sums up well what I remember the responses of the Kalmbach editor being a while back. Can not remember if this was mentioned by the editor or a poster, but the only other problem/subject I remember was the one-time use clause of the published articles. The fees paid authors may not allow the transfer to DVD.
Jay
CNJ831... one of the editors did indeed respond in such a thread a couple of years back, indicating that such an endeavor would not be nearly as easy for MR as it might be for some other magazines...
Sean
HO Scale CSX Modeler
PIRACY -- plain and simple, there would be free copies of the disks posted to Internet sites within a week of release.
There are too many programs floating around that allow people to make unrestricted copies of copyrighted CDs/DVDs and movies for only the cost of a blank disk.
Even if piracy were not a problem, do you really think there would be enough of a market to hire a full-time employee and purchase the necessary equipment to scan, label, package, and sell the disks?
I have the entire National Geographic set on CD that people keep holding up to Kalmbach as an example, and can tell you from first hand experience that the early issues are barely readable and they are not searchable.
cacolePIRACY -- plain and simple, there would be free copies of the disks posted to Internet sites within a week of release. There are too many programs floating around that allow people to make unrestricted copies of copyrighted CDs/DVDs and movies for only the cost of a blank disk. Even if piracy were not a problem, do you really think there would be enough of a market to hire a full-time employee and purchase the necessary equipment to scan, label, package, and sell the disks? I have the entire National Geographic set on CD that people keep holding up to Kalmbach as an example, and can tell you from first hand experience that the early issues are barely readable and they are not searchable.
The work more than likely would be subbed out to a company specializing in this type of work--no need to hire a full time employee for their staff.
BTW, had not thought about the piracy issue, that is a little larger scale than sharing thru photocopying.
Are the latest disc versions of National Geographic not searchable? I know the first set they issued back in the late '90s was not.
Confusion about old ads: Red herring. I have MR issues back to the 40's, do you really think I would call the companies who had ads palced there and expect to get products? Please.
Piracy: another red herring. If it's reasonably priced it won't be pirated. You can't stop it 100% but to decline to produce an electronic version of somethign because it MIGHT be pirated is yet another excuse
Searchable: There is NO REASON the digital copies need to be OCRd so they can be scanned. Fiing allt eh mistakes in OCRd copies of anything is indeed a HUGE job - even worse when the subject matter has its own lingo. So skip the OCR part, just get quality scans. Maybe the newer issues that are already produced electronically could be presented as searcahble - the last 10-15 years or so, but the really old issues - they do not have to be searcahble, expecially if the online index is grown. There's no reason a couple of more back years couldn;t be added to the online index each year - eventually it would get completed.
Popular Science recently made available ALL back issues of their magazine ONLINE for FREE - and that goes back to EIGHTEEN seventy. They're not all searchable, just scans of the pages - so you read it like, oh, a magazine!
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker Confusion about old ads: Red herring. I have MR issues back to the 40's, do you really think I would call the companies who had ads palced there and expect to get products? Please. Piracy: another red herring. If it's reasonably priced it won't be pirated. You can't stop it 100% but to decline to produce an electronic version of somethign because it MIGHT be pirated is yet another excuse
Firstly, the question about the ads regarded people who wanted to see them vs. those who wanted them omitted to condense the content, nothing as foolish as trying to contact manufacturers 40 years OOP.
Secondly, the figures for potential pricing previously floated were not cheap because of potentially limited circulation. As I've already pointed out, many posters baulked on hearing them, having unrealistically been anticipating dirt cheap DVDs. If the price was indeed steep, I'd say that piracy could be a major consideration. Remember, the audience for back issue DVDs of MR is going to be nothing like that for National Geographic, or Scientific American. As I think we are all coming to acknowledge in this hobby, very limited run means high price.
In my opinion, it would be much more profitable for MR to expand its bundling of similar past construction articles/material in separate DVDs, rather than letting the entire resource go out in one shot, regardless of its set price.
I wonder how the Information Station thing is working out - most of those cost the same as a full issue of the magazine and contain 2 or 3 articles pulled from old issues. If people buying those are the same as the ones who baulked at the price of a CD with a year's worth of complete issues.....
I also point out a lrge price gap. I recently picked up an issue of Classic Trains as well as an issue of TRP - The Railroad Press. Classic Trains I do usually buy anyway, but I've never purchased an issue of TRP until this one, because it covers the surviving Reading lines. TRP is oriented towards modern railfanning. It is very photo intensive, all color, and printed on very thick glossy paper - reminds me more of a softcover book than a magazine. Production levels seem high. Yet is was priced $4 less than the issue of Classic Trains....
Speaking of production values - hopefully what was in the latest MR isn't a sign of things to come. Great on the font changes and all, but there were at least two grammatical mistakes in the editorial alone. This is not soemthign often seen in MR.
And no, this isn't a bash Kalmbach message. In fact the customer support couldn;t be better - my issue was very very late, they happily and cheerfully sent me a replacement with no runarounds or jumping through hoops.
I would REALLY like to see some sort of digital product made available at least for the oldest issues which you simple cannot get anymore. I recently aquired the entire year 1943, but stuff like that rarely comes up for sale. And such material would be completely without context if the ads were stripped out. And if some Tru-Scale ad with the scantily clad cartoon female figures is going to sway your decision to buy the collection or not - please!