Will back issues of Model Railroader Magazine ever be made available on CD or DVD? I love my old copies of the magazine, but they sure take up a lot of space and are heavy. Having the back issues on CD would be grand. Kalmbach could turn a profit selling the old issue on CD. Other publishers are doing this, for example, I recently saw that you can purchase the back issues of National Geographic on CD. Just curious.
This has been discussed before here, it seemed that the final conclusion is the issue of piracy. A CD/DVD can and will be copied.
Hi from Belgium,
Nice idea. I agree the old issues take a lot of space (I have more than 70 years of MR in archives box!)
Nscale magazine offer the back issues on DVD and the 10years load on the DVD is cheap.
Hope that MR try to sale it at affordable price if they do it a day.
Marc
I suggested a while back that MR and Trains could do that, but they don’t seem interested. IIRC National Geographic had a “box set” where you could get like the first 100 years of their magazine on DVD. It would be nice of MR even just went back and did say the first 25-30 years of MR, so the long out-of-print early years were available.
Perhaps as technology advances it will be possible to make a CD-Rom that cannot be illegally copied??
I don’t think we’re a the point yet where you could completely eliminate stealing. Look at the music industry, despite its best efforts, piracy still continues today. However, the music industry does have the resources to track down the biggest offenders whereas a single publishing company like Kalmbach would be strained to do such policing. However, if the publishing industry as a whole were to combat it, they might be successful. All that being said, I believe piracy would have little effect, however, sharing (hey Bob, can I borrow your MR 1980-1989 disk?) would have a bigger effect.
Getting all the back issues scanned would be the biggest expense as burning CD/DVDs is relatively cheap. I think it is a viable option and more magazines should consider it. The Burlington Route Historical Society offers some of it out of print Burlington Bulletins on CD now which is fortunate to those of us that weren’t member when they were still available.
Ricky
One issue would be could they sell enough cd’s/dvd’s to cover the cost of scanning, marketing, etc. and make a profit that offsets the loss of back issue sales. Also, MR frequently does soft cover books that reprint some of the articles from the past.
While piracy would reduce sales and given the hacker/cracker community probably can’t be prevented, I suspect the real problem is that the market isn’t there in any event. National Geographic’s market is much larger and probably includes a number of libraries.
Enjoy
Paul
I have been in the center of these DVD/CD Discussions many times over the years on these forums.
Simple answer from Kalmbach: “Fugetaboutit.”
Now you can BUY a scanner and reduce that moldy, smelly space scarfing pile to nothing and put it all on a few disks. It will take a few weeks.
My solution? No MR at all anymore. I just read em and throw them away when I have extracted everything out.
I agree, all you need to do is scan the articles you want and store them yourself. I very much doubt that there is a big enough market for all the MR issues to be available on CD/DVD. MR is much different than NatGeo, their back issues have significant research uses while MR’s do not.
Now if any of the other big hobby monthlies put their back issues on CD/DVD, then Kalmbach may have to do it to keep up. So how about it Carstens?
Or get a company to do all the hobby magazines as a bundle? If the market is big enough, I am sure someone would do it.
Putting back issues on a CD has been tried. See http://www.highlandsstationllc.com/2005_cd.htm. For a year’s worth of ModelRailroading Magazine on CD they are asking $29.95 (down from $39.95 regular price) plus shipping/handling. If you want a 7 year set from 2000 to 2006, that’s on special for $99.95 (down from $199.95).
So, if folks really want to get back issues on CD, let’s hear how much they’re willing to spend for the opportunity.
Been discussed a million times. Shortsighted and technophobic Kalmbach just won’t do it. Stinks too, because I would rather use the bookshelves I have full of old Model Railroaders as train storage and a place for my railroad books. Plus I’d then be able to fulfill my dream of having every issue from Vol 1 #1 to present. I wouldn;t stop my subscription, I’d just wait a few years and buy the CD.
There’s a lot of change coming, and those who refuse to move with it are destined to become forgotten dinosaurs. The music industry is learning the hard way. It’s not the stealing, it’s that now we can pick and choose and are not required to buy a whole album just to get 2 good songs (in the multitude of cases where the released singles aren;t the ‘best’ songs on the album). Hmm, conspiracy theory if every issue was available in PDF form, how could they keep making books which are mostly compilations of past articles with a couple of new items thrown in?
Some publishers are going whole hog into electronic media - and it’s WORKING. Baen Books is a great example of how it can and should be done. I really won’t spend $8 for a paperback or $30 for a hardcover of some author I’ve never read before, hoping it will be good because someone said it was. At Baen I can get free copies of most anything in their catalog. Since they started doign this 4 years ago or so, I’ve uncovered at least a half dozen authors I now will just buy anything they put out. And found a few that I just don’t like and saved myself the trouble of spending the money. Baen’s electronic publications are also DRM free, none of that idiotic garbage that makes it hard to even use the product legitimately. In fact they ENCOURAGE you to share with friends! It works when done right. Doing it halfway, or ignoring new technology like the music industry did will only cause harm in the long term - just ask said music industry (wh
I work in a medlical library and over the last twelve years I have seen the medical journals go from exclusively print, to print and online access, to the point now where most of our journals are available only online. Kalmbach could make back issues of MR available online on a special subsciption basis if they do not want to release CDs and rick people copying them.
I am also a genealogists and one of the genealogical societies I belong to offer their old journals on CD back to the first issue. It is great having the CDs and I have saved a lot of shelve space. I can also do full text word searches across the CDs. If a genealogical society can afford to digitize, then I am confident Kalmbach could also afford to do so, especially since I understand that there are digitizing services now that you can outsource the work to so you do not have to purchase expensive overhead scanners.
Anyway, sooner or later Kalmbach will convert their publications to digital, but they will wait until they can figure out a business model that brings them a return on the investment in digitizing. It is a matter of time, I just hope they figure it our sooner than later. I would be happy with online access at a reasonable cost. For instance, a special online access fee on top of an annual subscription might be viable.
Lastly, the online content on the MR website I see as a step in the right direction. Again, from my medical library expericence, it takes some publishers longer than others to convert and there are many different business models and price schedules for doing online access. Experimenting with online content is a good step in the right direction.
Well if they need or want to charge $20 or $30 per year this will never work. First off not many people are going to pay that for old issues. And lets be honest the old issues are not that usefull. I have a full set of old issues going back to 1960 (combination of individual mags and bound volumes) and I almost never go into them.
So selling them at that price (and in todays economy it is even worse) will not work. Now if they where cheep enough (say $5 a year, or a set the 80 90 and 00s for maybe $45 or so) you may get some interst. And this would be a money revenue stream that keeps on giving. The cost is not that much (hire an intern to scan them if you can not justify a company doing it for you). Once they are scaned it is all profit.
The other down side is the piracy issue. But if they are cheep enough people will not steal them as it is not work it. Now if you want to charge a couple hundred for it expect that a LOT of people will copy them. So the only way this works is if it is cheep enough.
Doug M
I have found I don’t want everything in the magazine.
What I have begun doing with my more current MR mags is to cut out the pages with a sharp untility knife that I really want to keep for future reference and 3-hole punching them to fit in 3" 3 ring binders. They are organized in the binders by mo/yr chronologically. THe odd bits of half column endings to articles get pasted to a single page{s} at the end of that month’s issue pieces I have saved. The 3" binders have a flat side on the binder rings to keep everything flat in the binder rather than curved around the ring.
I recycle the rest that I don’t want in my usual curbside recycling. That kinda cuts out about two thirds of what I don’t want and/or ads that will be useless to me in the future, thus reducing weight and storage issues.
best issue not to…accurate plans in the mag. What I hope on Kalmbachs own initiative is to digitally archive their own stuff. Them old mags tho have great value of info.