Epublishing is gaining - while traditional publishing gets another nail in the coffin

I have stacks of old model railroad magazines that I need to find time to scan to cd or dvd.  The problem of storage is so huge that I am thankful in the extreme that quit subscribing to any general model railroad magazine over 10 years ago.  The only paper magazine that I subscribe to is the Warbonnet from the Santa Fe Historical & Modeling Society.  I sometimes buy a magazine if it has an article that I want, but generally buy less than 3 magazines per year.  The one thing that will not under any circumstances be stored under my layout will be magazines.

I only have about 15 years worth of magazines and honestly, I have no idea what to do with them.  I currently have them stored in a box in the garage, but I doubt I'll really look at any of them again because I won't remember which issue had what I was looking for.  In electronic form in the PDF, I can do searches on the computer that should turn up what I'm looking for in seconds. 

Roy's point is very valid - the problem with the electronic version, is that it hasn't been as convenient as a paper copy for casual, or quick reference. Having the paper copy under the bench work to refer to has been a better solution in most cases than having to walk over to a computer or open up a laptop.

The new e-readers, especiallly the iPad, change this dynamic. The ease of use of these devices, as those with iPod Touches or iPhones have come to discover, makes it a lot more convenient for e-reading purposes.

In my mind, it hasn't been the media that's been slowing things down, as much as the physical interface.

In electronic form in the PDF, I can do searches on the computer that should turn up what I'm looking for in seconds. 

Dave

Yes, exactly!  I am using MS One Note to archive my digital MRR resources.  I can paste an image of the table of contents from MRH into OneNote and the text in the image is search-able so I can quickly find any article I might be looking for just by typing in a keyword from the article title or description.  Lets see anyone do that with their boxes of back issues!

Sure there is the MRR index online that can be used to find articles and then one could search through the boxes to find the issue in question, but I like my way better.

I wonder how many years of Moldy Railroader would fit on a terabyte of disk space?  If you only digitized the worthwhile content and left out all the advertising and other drivel each issue would only require a handful of pages to be scanned for archiving.

Imagine having your entire MRR collection on one external drive that you could take anywhere and access with any USB enabled PC.  Sounds good to me!

it goes beyond searching article titles.  PDF's are fully text searchable with the right tool and a quick search can bring key words up in any article, not just the table of contents.  There are all kinds of tools that can do this quite efficiently.

I do understand the point about having the stuff at the layout, but I don't really have a good memory for remembering which magazine to look in and it would literally take me potentially hours to find anything I was really looking for.  With the electronic version, I have the laptop in the layout room and run my search from there and I have it on screen.  I do understand people who don't like to read computer screens (especially netbook screens), but it works for me. 

Recently my club held a meeting at a members home to celebrate the opening of the mainline on his excellent new layout.  At the same time we were also watching football (CFL) on his new Hi Definition, LED back lit, 52 inch flat panel TV.  I had brought along my lap top and the latest edition of MRH to distribute to the members (usually around 10 copies) when I had a brain wave; hook the lap top to the TV via HDMI.  The result was phenomenal,  a bunch of guys sitting around on comfy couches and chairs perusing and discussing the best model railway magazine available.  If I had brought my presentation remote I wouldn’t  even have had to  touch the lap top to flip pages.  For me this is the future of digital magazines; they become just another form of content for the tube.  I can’t wait; gotta get that media room finished!

I admit that I've cut down of the volume of old mags by selecting pertinent articles, cutting them out and arranging them in file folders. Even if I could transfer all those back issues to CD's or whatever, I really don't want to bother since there's so much of them. It's easier to cut and file.  However, with more current publications, it does make sense to digitize important articles. As an S scaler, I don't need all those tons of ads and reviews of the other scales, so cutting down on the material makes sense, whether or it's in file folders or CD's or whatever.

It sounds like a lot of people are using various forms of the new technology to achieve their purposes. I'm certainly not averse to change. I had a 34 year career (1968-2002) in computers and saw a lot of technological advances over those years. I maintain my own website and right now I'm designing a means of operating my layout using Powerbuilder. I just  hope that real paper and virtual paper can coexist and continue to be a choice.

I really can't see any advantage to a paper mag.  If I want plans for a piece of rolling stock or structure at the work bench, I can print it and carry one or two pages to the bench instead of a magazine.  My computer can search and find archived articles faster than I can open a box of mags or take one off the shelf.

Fellows.

A great thread.I do not keep magazines. I have some which I value , the information in them is hard to find . .My point , In the past the magazine trade has made us subsidize advertisers. Now the advertiser needs carry the burden . I am not paying $30 per year to subscribe / sub- sidize.

I enjoy reading this  E zine , The idea that this forum allows contributions from who ever in what ever form and quality is an amazing step forward. This is content by the masses , to be seen or not at the whim of the viewer.

I do collect books in a big way , I enjoy them in hand under the reading light in my easy chair .I do not enjoy going on line to search for information "very much" as it seems a bit frustrating and vague as to results.That said , the internet has brought  the world of information to our fingertips, hard to argue with that. This is a great benefit to fellows who do not have many books. Books can be a  spendy and un available side of the hobby . Books going out of print and etc.

I want to add , I contribute to this forum  , Understanding    ,   that without us , This effort fails..

personally I like and use both Paper and Plastic so to speak. as I have a complete library at my house with Hard cover Model Railroad Books, Model railroad Magazines, railroad journals, general modeling books and magazines wood working hard cover Books and magazines, electronics theory and laws and many other construction and mathematics books all starting from about 1930 to today in total somewhere close if not exceeding 1800 books and magazines that all help me with my modeling and my other hobbies.

in the past 9 years I've started saving computer files and DVD/CD's for railroading in modeling and railfaning. in my opinion both medias have their place and purpose and both together give you a more complete package to say or consider that electronic media will replace paper will that may happen some day but not in our life time. Give it another 30 to 50 years and you'll find my books in a library as well as thousands of others books and all their and my E-media files where everybody will have access to it with the click of your finger. the world is in the baby step era now and learning how to access and publish this new "E" type media but it's still very young and it's going to fall down and get up many times before the whole world accepts it.

But as I said I use it all or at least what there is of it so far and some day the whole world will use E-media like they use their Cell phones now except it will make the cell phones of today look like Fred Flintstones car compared to whats ahead.

All I can say is "Don't fight it", "just flow with it" and see whats coming and maybe we'll live long enough to see what the worlds got to offer us especally in electronics and the open ended media advances coming in the not so far future. Just look at all the changes since 1990 in model railroading alone with DCC and now in just the last couple of years how much more it has advanced in sound and size.

The E-Zine is here to stay but, for now so is the paper print but who can say for how long could 10 years could be another 1000 I really don't think I see it end.

Dan