Digital magazines
 

Starting this thread as I hope there a good amount of posts, and did not wish to highjack the thread about the poci going digital started by Mgarblik.

Before I start the post, a comment. Most of you know I have been in the carburetor business for years (this is our 50th). I have been scanning carburetor books, drawings, prints, slides, movies, etc.) for about 20 years.

Why?

Because I indexed while scanning, and today if a customer calls looking for something, I can look up the part number in a few seconds 1974 to 1930! It will take a bit longer to determine if I have it in stock, as I will not live long enough to digitize the entire parts inventory.

About 1 year ago, I sent more than 90 GB to the AACA library, so my work will not expire with me. I have more to send scanned in the last year.

So get to the point already!

The point is, I LIKE to research old articles, etc. in older magazines, but how? A company put out an index to articles in "Road & Track", "Car & Driver", and "Motor Trend" maybe 20 years ago, so if an article I wish is in one of these magazines, I at least know which magazine to look for. But with more than 5000 back issues, finding the correct one often takes more time than I wish to spend.

So, and I do not know the legality of this (maybe some of you with legal training will hop in), what if those of us who enjoy research, and understand the benefits of digital data were to decide among ourselves to scan magazines, and make the scans we do available to others in the group simply for the cost of the postage of a thumb drive? Each individual could be responsible for scanning a certain title, or more likely one or more years within the title.

To date, most of my scanning has been carburetor related. I generally use Adobe Acrobat and scan to a PDF file WHICH IS COMPLETELY DIGITALLY SEARCHABLE!

Magazines that I have scanned either complete runs, or partial runs if I don't have complete runs, are: Carter "Sales & Service News", Holley "Carbograms", and Rochester "Newsletter".

Pontiac related which I have scanned are partial runs of: "Pontiac Owners Magazine", "Pontiac Service News", and "Pontiac Safari".

So what say you?

Anyone interested in doing some scanning in return for receiving digital data? Dependant on legality?

Oh, and for those who don't like sitting in front of the computer, I have my computer attached to the big screen, and can crash in the Lazy-Boy and do my research on the big screen.

If there is sufficient interest, and this is legal, we could list magazine runs in each of our possession, and determine who could scan what.

Just to start the who could scan what, and I am NOT going to scan all of this stuff, I have virtually complete runs from issue 1 to when I said "enough is enough" of the following:

Pontiac related:

"Pontiac Service News" and "Service Craftsman News" (starts in the 1920's)
"Pontiac Owners Magazine" (mid 1930's)
"Pontiac Safari" (early 1960's through early 1970's)
"Pontiac Service Bulletins" (1957 through maybe 1980).
"GM Folks" (late 1930's through 1956)
"Thunder Am" (complete run)
"High Performance Pontiac" (from the end of "Thunder Am" to "enough"

General Auto magazines;

"Car & Driver" (late 40's to "enough"
"Road & Track" (late 40's to "enough"
"Skinned Knuckles" (1976 to my subscription ran out following the sale from the founder).

Technical:

A.E.A tune-up charts
Sun tune-up charts

Also have a large collection of tractor publications (man does not exist with Pontiac alone, there is also John Deere ;) )

Jon

I like the idea about preserving information. I don't know about the legality. I pay for the Motor Trend subscription. I can watch the shows and can read old copies of a bunch of magazines. $5 a month is acceptable to me as I no longer have cable tv.

As I'm sure you know, scanning old magazines, catalogs, etc. is a lot of work. I often refer to the Vintage Machinery website for information on old tools; it's run by Keith Rucker and he's amassed a huge amount of tool catalogs, owners manuals and so forth. Rather than using a flat bed scanner, he has a rig set up for digitizing the catalogs more efficiently that actually uses a couple digital cameras. He posted a video showing how it works a few years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIk8Drn2kE0

As to the legality, it depends on if they are still operating and who owns the proprietary information if they are not. For instance, even though the Pontiac brand is officially dead, no other car manufacturer can make more for X number of years. It is an absurd number of years after it is no longer in use, but all they have to do is do a 1 time event to extend that time frame. I would do a little research and see if they just went belly up or were bought out. Also, be careful with anything with Pontiac in the actual title, because GM is very litigious currently. Even with dead brands.

May be a tad off-topic, my car was featured in Hotrod magazine in 1990, I recently discovered the article has been converted to a digital page.

Thats really cool, I had a similar thought on a smaller scale and also wasn't sure about legality. If you arent marketing it for profit I don't know how much legality there could be involved.

When I LLCed myself last year with the intent of selling some automotive related t shirts, I had the thought to have an alternate "Tech" section on my website where I just collate all the stuff Ive used over the years.

I think it was Firstgen.org that had all the 67-69 bird manuals back in the day and then it folded because nobody paid the dues for the site. I always liked that resource and wanted to do something similar but with a broader range.

Most people are probably already aware of these sites, but a couple useful ones for auto research are https://oldcarbrochures.org and https://www.oldcarmanualproject.com Tons of factory brochures, repair manuals, owner's manuals, wiring diagrams and more. If you want to find the original paint chip charts for your car, go to https://www.autocolorlibrary.com

ALL HotRod magazine back issues (January 1948-present)have been digitized, as well as many back issues for several other titles (including Muscle Car Review) are available on the motortrend site. I have a sub to their streaming service, but I think the magazines are available with a free MT account as well.

Your comment about GM does not surprise me; I would have reproduced the "Service Craftsman News" for sale 35 years ago except for the response I received from their legal department. We had a couple of brothers in Missouri a "few" years ago with the same attitude (their last name was James!).

So I guess my scanning efforts will be limited to carburetor data (at least to offer), as I have written authority to do so from all of the majors except Autolite. Still will be scanning some of the others for my own use.

Jon

As a former moderator on a vintage garden tractor forum I can attest to the fact that John Deere legal came down on us like a ton of bricks for scanning vintage JD garden tractor owners manuals for tractors and accessories and posting them for forum members to download for free. Oh well, corporate policy ain't always good for customer relations.....

Music should be always free as well./
not

If the company in question has reprints available, I have no issue with buying the reprints. Pretty sure Deere has reprints available for all of their L & G tractors. And they are good quality, I have several.

Its what isn't available that bothers me.

When I tried to reproduce the "Service Craftsman News", and got the response from GM that I couldn't afford, I even offered my collection on loan if they would do the reproductions. There was no interest.

I was really quite surprised at what Pontiac no longer had in their library. I made a number of copies for them of some really RARE stuff, and got some interesting stuff in return.

And least anyone misunderstand, the purpose of this thread was NOT to avoid paying royalties, rather to preserve information, and make it available. At my age, TRYING to downsize, and eliminating my magazine collection would free up a LOT of space.

Jon

What you could always do is scan them anyway for personal use, and later try to identify the legality of it. I am sure someone out there would look at purchasing your physical copies as well. Nobody can prevent you from scanning them for yourself, just as long as you do not distribute them.