I don't know if people follow the Stellar Media forum on www.cloudynights.com but I just saw a confirmation post from Sean Walker, a Sky and Telescope editor, that they plan to publish the entire archive of the magazine (dating from 1941) to DVD at some point in the future. This is excellent news and although pricing is not yet known, it would be an incredible resource to own.
John
John Flannery ( aurorawatcher - at * gmail - dot * com ... remove hyphens/asterisks/spaces for email)
The chicken's motive for crossing the road would not be questioned in an ideal world
I wonder when DVD or electronic download will be the way to go for international magazines like this. To have an entire back catalogue on disc would be deadly. Can you see National Geographic doing the same (going back to 1888)? What kind of logistics are involved????
Seanie.
Midlands Astronomy Club.
Radio Presenter (Midlands 103), Space Enthusiast, Astronomy Outreach Co-ordinator.
Former IFAS Chairperson and Secretary.
I'm surprised they're doing this, they charge for back issues, so wont they loose out due to this ?
I think the back issues print are just what was left from the initial print run, Dave, and were returned as unsold. That's how most magazines do it. Once the prints run out however, that's it... unless demand is high enough to continue reprinting batches (the energy in printing just a few copies at a time is grotesquely high).
Seanie.
Midlands Astronomy Club.
Radio Presenter (Midlands 103), Space Enthusiast, Astronomy Outreach Co-ordinator.
Former IFAS Chairperson and Secretary.
I'm surprised they're doing this, they charge for back issues, so wont they loose out due to this ?
Its a huge body of data and it would be a not insignificant time-sink to put the DVD together. No doubt they will charge for it so I can't see them losing out. And I'm sure it will be a fairly substantial amount. But worth it for those who want it...
probably most of the last 30 years would already be in electronic format seeing most of it would have been produced on computer. you'd have to scan the rest. it would be really interesting to see the old issues. the cost would be a sticking point for most people. maybe if an astronomy club bought it for their "library" it might work out cheaper, or if they were bought in bulk.
I purchased the S&T DVD's. They came in a convenient slip box of 8 DVD's. Much less space than a library shelf.
I have, as yet, only opened the 1960s DVD, the quality of reproduction (scanning for that era) appears very good, very much better than the National Geographic CD's I purchased years ago,
There is a facility to search the S&T DVDs by word or phase. It can be done by issue or decade. Also the entire collection can be searched via a separate index DVD.
