1. Topics
  2. Archives

Archives

Ken Hiebert
 

Today I wanted to look back at old issues of Socialist Action (US). I could not find an archive aside from the one that appears on the Marxist’s Internet Archive. And that runs only to 1992.
How often do periodicals have an on-line archive? What are the technical and financial obstacles to having such an archive?
ken h

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/periodicals/archive/index.htm
David Walters
 

This is a huge and fascinating question. In fact at labor tech conference in a few weeks I'll be reporting on this very issues.  The most important aspect of scanning/digitizing our common history's working class publications is one of...will. One needs to find folks willing to do this and develop a constructive "OCD" attitude in order to accomplish what can be considered a droll and repeative physical function of running a scanner titled "Scanning documents, journals and books to create PDFs on the Marxists Internet Archive [v2.0]" It is located here:  https://www.marxists.org/admin/volunteers/mia-PDF-scanning-guide.htm

 

The only financial impact on this is acquiring a tabloid sized scanner: 11 inches/28 cm by 17 inches/43 cm at the minimum. Many of us have used used GT1500s from Epson which has singularly wonderful software needed to tweak the pages. They run, used from $300 USD to around $800 USD on ebay and other venues.

 

Ken, read the scanning guide and then resubmit the questions.

 

In the MIA's case, we had two folks, myself and Marty Goodman (not the MG from SA, another one with the same name but similar politics) who was of the financial means to acquire such a scanner and even larger one to do broadsheet scanning as well. He was OCD/dedicated enough to run through multiple newspapers of the "old" and "new" left eras listed on that page but would get, understandably, board so he would normally only do the first 10 years of any publication or less. Thus SA, which was started at the very end of 1984 I think he ran it until 1992 though it still under publication. Einde O'Callahan who also scans periodicals have also put an upper chronological limit of "10 years"...that is we won't run to the current date of publications, but only until, as of now, 2012. It is not a rule but a self imposed limit.

 

There are still tons of US and especially British publications that have to be scanned and should be a commitment for all left groups to document their history this way and provide those willing to scan material the necessary back issues to do so.

David Walters,

Marxists Internet Archive

 

 
Michael Schreiber
 

As the former editor and designer of Socialist Action newspaper, I have dozens of pdf facsimiles of the old issues of SA in my computer, and I have promised David W. that I would contribute them to the Marxist internet archives. I have most of the monthly editions from 2010 until the end of 2019. The older copies are on floppy disks and might be more difficult to retrieve. The first edition of SA newspaper, incidentally, appeared in December 1983.


On Sun, Jul 3, 2022 at 3:21 PM David Walters <dwaltersmia@...> wrote:

This is a huge and fascinating question. In fact at labor tech conference in a few weeks I'll be reporting on this very issues.  The most important aspect of scanning/digitizing our common history's working class publications is one of...will. One needs to find folks willing to do this and develop a constructive "OCD" attitude in order to accomplish what can be considered a droll and repeative physical function of running a scanner titled "Scanning documents, journals and books to create PDFs on the Marxists Internet Archive [v2.0]" It is located here:  https://www.marxists.org/admin/volunteers/mia-PDF-scanning-guide.htm

 

The only financial impact on this is acquiring a tabloid sized scanner: 11 inches/28 cm by 17 inches/43 cm at the minimum. Many of us have used used GT1500s from Epson which has singularly wonderful software needed to tweak the pages. They run, used from $300 USD to around $800 USD on ebay and other venues.

 

Ken, read the scanning guide and then resubmit the questions.

 

In the MIA's case, we had two folks, myself and Marty Goodman (not the MG from SA, another one with the same name but similar politics) who was of the financial means to acquire such a scanner and even larger one to do broadsheet scanning as well. He was OCD/dedicated enough to run through multiple newspapers of the "old" and "new" left eras listed on that page but would get, understandably, board so he would normally only do the first 10 years of any publication or less. Thus SA, which was started at the very end of 1984 I think he ran it until 1992 though it still under publication. Einde O'Callahan who also scans periodicals have also put an upper chronological limit of "10 years"...that is we won't run to the current date of publications, but only until, as of now, 2012. It is not a rule but a self imposed limit.

 

There are still tons of US and especially British publications that have to be scanned and should be a commitment for all left groups to document their history this way and provide those willing to scan material the necessary back issues to do so.

David Walters,

Marxists Internet Archive

 

 
1 - 3 of 3