Antique Automobile - print copy and digital copy

[Steve Moskowitz]

They should be but you can call the AACA Library at 717-534-2082 to obtain one!

[John_S_in_Penna]

18 hours ago, Walt G said:

Electronic magazine, digital photos are "now" but as someone from "then" I still like a paper magazine, book, print publication and am so happy and we are so fortunate that the printed period photos still survive...

 

Well stated, Walt.

Physical media are vital.  No one should disparage

himself because he wants tangible products!

 

A book or magazine from the 1800's is still readable,

accessible, and will be for centuries to come.

We can admire artwork from the 1600's in museums

and discern the artist's brushstroke techniques.

 

Yet, if you could have stored your family photos

from the 1970's on magnetic media, could you still

look at them?  Do you have 8" floppy disk readers

close at hand?  How about their successor, 5" disks?

Likely not even 3-1/2" disks.  I've read that the military

has data stored that they can't read because the

machines to read them are obsolete.

 

Electronics are useful and have their place, but never

think someone is "old" because he wants to view

Rembrandt's (or Stutz's) artwork in person! 

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

Walt, hypothetical question for you being the historian.  Do you think far into the future the era we are in now will be a grey area of information?

 

Most everything now is transmitted electronically, IMO will be lost to future generations. Looking back to the past we know what furniture and tools people had living in the 18th century. They wrote everything down for tax records if nothing else. Now I would surmise most people dont even had hard copies of family vacation pictures.

[Walt G]

Mr. Kerry, what you state is reality. Electronic recording of images, pages etc. does preserve material - now - according to current technology, but will the equipment that is currently used be available and in good working order generations from now? This has been an on going issue that preservationists, and collections have dealt with for centuries. We had cassette players and super 8 movies decades ago record or replace obsolete technology. 78 rpm records replaced cylinder records, which saw 45 rpm, then also LP etc. . Historians can not rely on one current form of popular well promoted "advanced" technology and discount all past ways of preservation. Glass plate negatives can still have prints made off of their images that were captured over 100 years ago. Many of them were destroyed when considered 'out of date" ( that could have been the fate of the Mack Truck files when they moved from Brooklyn, NY to Allentown, Pa in the early 1950s had it not been for Austin Clark) . I look at this not just from the subject of automotive material as I am an appointed local historian as well and have been active in state preservation seminars for decades. There are companies that issue huge catalogs of material that can be purchased for preservation - the words "acid free" are very important for many types of folders, envelopes, plastic sleeves , sheet protectors etc. to contain period material in that has acid content in its paper etc. There is clear plastic material for use in framing photos, and displays to prevent as much ultraviolet light from attacking the object that needs to be saved. I made my own frame and got the clear plastic treated "window" glass decades ago to frame a large towel I have that was used in the air ship the "Graf Zeppelin"  and the towel says the name and has the air ship image  sewn into it in profile as well. It had survived for decades folded up in a pile after automotive journalist John J. Ide got it on a trip back from Europe while on that airship.( yes , I have a lot of odd stuff)   There are seminars on preservation of materials given but most are not open to or known by the general pubic due to the lack of broad appeal and interest. Perhaps this would be a good topic for a seminar by an automobile club?

[Terry Bond]

4 minutes ago, Walt G said:

Mr. Kerry, what you state is reality. Electronic recording of images, pages etc. does preserve material - now - according to current technology, but will the equipment that is currently used be available and in good working order generations from now? This has been an on going issue that preservationists, and collections have dealt with for centuries. We had cassette players and super 8 movies decades ago record or replace obsolete technology. 78 rpm records replaced cylinder records, which saw 45 rpm, then also LP etc. . Historians can not rely on one current form of popular well promoted "advanced" technology and discount all past ways of preservation. Glass plate negatives can still have prints made off of their images that were captured over 100 years ago. Many of them were destroyed when considered 'out of date" ( that could have been the fate of the Mack Truck files when they moved from Brooklyn, NY to Allentown, Pa in the early 1950s had it not been for Austin Clark) . I look at this not just from the subject of automotive material as I am an appointed local historian as well and have been active in state preservation seminars for decades. There are companies that issue huge catalogs of material that can be purchased for preservation - the words "acid free" are very important for many types of folders, envelopes, plastic sleeves , sheet protectors etc. to contain period material in that has acid content in its paper etc. There is clear plastic material for use in framing photos, and displays to prevent as much ultraviolet light from attacking the object that needs to be saved. I made my own frame and got the clear plastic treated "window" glass decades ago to frame a large towel I have that was used in the air ship the "Graf Zeppelin"  and the towel says the name and has the air ship image  sewn into it in profile as well. It had survived for decades folded up in a pile after automotive journalist John J. Ide got it on a trip back from Europe while on that airship.( yes , I have a lot of odd stuff)   There are seminars on preservation of materials given but most are not open to or known by the general pubic due to the lack of broad appeal and interest. Perhaps this would be a good topic for a seminar by an automobile club?

Fantastic idea Walt!   The preservation of material is important to us and I believe our Library and Research Center is on the leading edge in doing what is necessary to maintain items in their possession (regardless of their form of media).  I think a seminar on the topic of preservation would be fantastic.  There are many literature and artwork collectors among us that struggle with the lack of knowledge or added costs of archival materials and techniques.  The "black-art" of paper restoration is a well-kept secret among professionals but needs to be something more accessible to others concerned for doing what is right in preserving these historic artifacts.  It should not be left to those professionals to "pick up the pieces" that remain once amateur collectors have unintentionally allowed it to deteriorate while in their possession.   I would certainly be in a front row seat if such a seminar were offered a Philly!

Terry

[JV Puleo]

Ironically enough, the printed book is the most efficient means of storing information that has ever been invented and advancing technology is very unlikely to replace it unless it can produce an item that is almost indestructible (have you ever tried to burn a book?) and requires nothing more than being able to read the language it's printed in.

 

About 30 years ago I typeset a very low production book for a customer - about 500 pages and all of 250 copies were printed. But, I saved the discs...except they were 10" floppy discs and only worked with a specialized typesetting machine. I personally tipped that machine into a dumpster - and threw the now useless discs in with it. The 250 print copies of the book are still out there.

[2caaca]

Oh boy, so much to say… so this’ll be a “drive by” answer (well… maybe not)… no matter what I say, there’ll be more to say… perhaps later… to start – just jumping around…

 

I don’t know the exact answer as a matter of record for the initial question on this thread… as editor of the SAH Journal for The Society of Automotive Historians (i.e., chief bottle washer and cook), and for other publications, I can tell you, yes, the PDF (hi-res, lo-res, et al) is most certainly real and at hand at the time a publication is done and ready for print because a formatted hi-res PDF with the requisite bleeds is what’s sent to the printer… and the SAH (in this case, yours truly) sends the membership a downloadable PDF of the issue before the printer knows he has an issue to print… but, but, BUT… here’s what (I believed right away, again, I don’t know) could have been the rationale for what the AACA did with this one-digital-issue-in-arrears “set-up” when it was first initiated way back when – and that has to do with advertising… as a courtesy for ALL members… if the current digital issue was made available when done it would certainly be available way ahead of the print version getting printed and getting to members… accordingly, only those that would look (and have the ability to look) at the current issue online would have the first crack at the ads (namely the classifieds), such that by the time a print issue arrives to a print-only-consumer, the ads would have been plundered by the digital guys… this way (with one issue in arrears), everyone (theoretically) gets a crack at the publication’s ads at (more or less) the same time. Yes, magazines arrive at all different time around the country… and I’m right there with “edinmass” in Florida where it seems we’re the last to get print stuff (even when I used a printer 40 miles from my location, people more than a thousand miles away would get theirs before me… that’s the nature of periodical (“second class”) mail).

 

The whole digital/internet thing is a big discussion… I’m one with each foot planted in both worlds… I simply love print media and the art of print and the human-tactile connection with print… it’s real, it’s visceral… it is indispensable. Meanwhile, digital has attributes that are greatly under-understood… but the value of which (I say this from a mountain top in full-throated exclamation) is indispensable for the historian and the simply curious – enabling one and all to search and find incredible snatches and full volumes of things you didn’t know you didn’t know about.

 

Let me take one example… from Steve Moskowitz (earlier):

 

“Just an FYI....for years you have been able to purchase a memory stick with ALL the past issues in it.  No we don't stuff them in the tiny piece but all issues have been digitized.  Available through the AACA Library for about $100.”

 

After you’re done reading this, stop what you’re doing and go order this! I got one. The trick to this thing is… you’re not going to sit there and open each… issue… and… turn… each… page… like you do with a book (although you can certainly do that). No… here’s what you want to do: these issues have been OCR’d (that means, the pages of text have been passed through a process of “optical character recognition”) such that you can search that actual text through 75 years of issues (using the free version of Adobe PDF Reader you can download from Adobe’s website… or it’s already on your computer), and what comes up is every time the thing you’re looking for is found on a page, it’s listed, in bold, in a window, with the words before and after what you searched for (to judge context)… you find the one you want, click on it (click on that line), and the page, from the given issue, will pop up (the PDF of the issue) with the phrase you search for in yellow highlight so you could find and see it immediately on the page. All that happens in about 30 seconds. Or… you can read through 75 years of printed issues to look what you’re looking for. (And even if a publication has an index… would you care to guess how many things are simply not indexed?? I can tell you quite a bit over many years as a researcher of history, etc.)

 

On longevity. Media compatibility is an issue… but not a big one. On one end, there’s a government facility (name escapes me) that (for national security) keeps a backup of – the – entire – internet… from day to day, I believe from hour to hour, so that if anything happens, they can go back to a given day and search the internet as it existed on that day to see if there was “buzz” related to what they’re investigating. Everything has its +’s and -‘s… books and paper get mold, disintegrate, and then there’s the story of The Library of Alexandria… electronic data is depended on a civilization with electricity and technology (useless in a post-apocalyptic reality)… but all things being equal, data facilities have extraordinary backup and redundancy protocols… so for institutions that properly plan, the risk is rather low for digital issues (not what one would guess given the things that make the news… in those instances, I would insist that those were mostly risks that were enlarged by poor management). This won’t be a full rundown of the +’s and -‘s, but allow yourself to adopt the possibility that in the “you don’t know what you don’t know” category, there may be quite a bit of acreage in that undiscovered country to learn about… and I include myself in that – and I’ll unashamedly say I know quite a bit after a career in one of the largest international banks headquartered in New York… there’s still quite a bit that I don’t know that I don’t know.

 

Print… digital… it’s not a contest. Coming full circle (as I sit here surrounded by paper… and external hard drives), I love the printed page (and I feel sure that that will not be going away in any future human society), and I love the utility and portability of digital media… I just got my print issue of Antique Automobile in the mail… I’m looking forward to adding the electronic version to my 75+ year-old library of issues as well.

 

A big shout-out to my good friend “Walt G” (he brought this thread to my attention… knowing that I would be most interested – and he was right) – he’s a treasure to automotive history, as are so many here – and I’m so very glad to see the vitality of inquiry and exchange of ideas! (And I’m very happy that there’s a “Society of Automotive Historians” section here, at home, on the AACA Forum… brilliant!)

Enjoy!

[John_S_in_Penna]

5 hours ago, Walt G said:

There are seminars on preservation of materials given but most are not open to or known by the general pubic due to the lack of broad appeal and interest. Perhaps this would be a good topic for a seminar by an automobile club?

 

5 hours ago, Terry Bond said:

Fantastic idea Walt!   The preservation of material is important to us... 

I would certainly be in a front row seat if such a seminar were offered at Philly!

 

 

You both have an excellent idea.  In fact, the Library has

also had that excellent idea:  They have given such a seminar

at our Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.  I attended, perhaps 8 years

ago.  They gave out catalogues, too, of various storage-safe

materials.

[Walt G]

John, thanks for mentioning that there was a seminar on preservation of paper,photographs etc. at a Annual meeting in Philadelphia 8 years ago. Many may not know or recall that there was - Yeah AACA!  But in the thought of interest of many of the threads here it is perhaps that something like a Preservation Seminar take place every 3 years or so on a regular basis? Perhaps involve the AACA library, Society of Automotive Historians , some of the commercial companies that serve the preservation of material???

As I have mentioned - I have to many ideas . If any of you get tired of my rants just send me a message and tell me to tone it down or knock it off.

 

For my good friend 2CAACA in Florida  - me a "treasure" ? Huh?  treasures get buried, and I want to stay above ground as long as possible 🤣

Walt

[Peter Gariepy]

We as an organization (AACA) have the paper version of much of what is available in books, magazines, service manuals etc.  All located in the AACA Library. Climate controlled.  Fire suppression, etc.  Adding digital just makes the materials more accessible.

 

HINT:  Have a large collection of automobile related printed material? DONATE IT TO THE AACA LIBRARY! http://www.aacalibrary.org/donations-overview/

 

Best of both worlds.

[Frank DuVal]

On 8/3/2021 at 5:05 PM, SC38DLS said:

The oldest Auto Industry magazine (a trade journal) charges $360 for an annual subscription which is two print issues (also exact copy in digital) and two other digital only. 

Which one? Motor (1903) published their last print issue December 2020. I still get the digital version.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Frank DuVal (see edit history)

[SC38dls]

Automotive Industry magazine. Started in late 1800’s. When we started doing the circulation work it had 200,000 circulation. Today it’s under 3000. It has been sold multiple times, the current owner has had it about 15 years. I’m not sure it will survive beyond this year. 
dave s