Gold in Them Thar Hills! - Photoplay and Vintage Film/Media Magazine Digitation Project
David Pierce (of The Silent Film Bookshelf) reported recently on Nitrateville the following exciting news:
I've been working on a project to digitize trade and fan magazines, and the first batch, from the collection of the Pacific Film Archive, is now on-line.
There are eight volumes (four years) of Photoplay, and one volume each of Motion Picture Classic (1920) and Moving Picture World (April-June 1913). Thanks to Nancy Goldman of the Pacific Film Archive for working with me on this group of materials. As always with the Internet Archive, you can download high-quality PDFs, embed their viewer on your webpage, and download the original full-quality scans. (the July-December 1925 volume of Photoplay is still in work; I can send the PDF to anyone who can't wait).
I have grant funding to do much more (it costs about 10c per page) and am working with several other libraries and archives to coordinate scanning of material from their collections. Leonard Maltin has given the effort a nice launch on his blog: and the project brochure is on-line here. If any Nitrateville readers have bound volumes that they would be willing to allow the project to scan (and be willing to cover shipping or transport to an Internet Archive scanning center) then let me know through PM. I hope to do another batch of materials in the next few months. Enjoy these volumes and let all of us know what you find! David Pierce
To say this is exciting news and an absolute GOLD MINE for cinema researchers, well that's a mighty large understatement. I'm thrilled and am hopefull that other libraries still holding the bound volumes of Moving Picture World and other trade magazines and studio house organs of the era will come forth and allow scanning. Thank you to David for the hard work and getting this fabulous project started.
Comments
Brilliant work done. I really like it. A picture is worth a thousand words literally. People like pictures, big, colorful pictures and lots of them. Decide on how many pictures you need for the piece and whether or not you can take the photos yourself or if you need to buy them/license them from a stock photo service. If you can take them yourself, head out and start snapping.
angeldream
Excellent work. You are doing great job. Online media is all around us, and sometimes we end up forgetting why printed media is sometimes outdated. The very fact that a magazine appears monthly ends up costing quite a bit of time from written material to publication, and so articles written in printed media may seem irrelevant when you read your magazine.
sujen
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