hobby magazine index

[DaClyde]

Since I've got a stack of old hobby magazines from the 80s & early 90s piled up in the house, I was thinking of starting a baseball card (or more generically sports card) periodical index something akin to the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature we all used to use back in school when doing research. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on how to go about this? My first thought was to build a database, but that sort of locks the data away, and if one site goes offline, no one can access it. My other thought was just to build it as posts on my blog. That way allows Google to crawl and cache it and people can more easily find it and use/copy the information as they see fit. But then I thought it might be a good addition to BaseballCardPedia, so there is more actual content that simply card sets. I'm just not sure how to organize it.

What I'm wanting to do is make available a listing of every article in every magazine to include title, subjecs (sort of how we use tags now on everything), author, publication issue/date. I've mostly got issues of the large format Baseball Hobby News, Baseball Card News, Baseball Cards Magazine, a few issues of SCD's Price Guide Magazine, Beckett and Tuff Stuff. Everything I have runs from 1983-about 1994, but I would absolutely love to include older and newer issues.

Ok, I've got 1987 Baseball Cards magazine posted.

http://clydes-stalecards.blogspot.com/2011/10/sports-card-hobby-magazine-index.html

I'm missing the September 1987 issue, but the rest are represented. Lots of the articles don't list authors. Does anyone have any suggestions on the formatting or a better place to host this information?

 

[mintman2]

Interesting idea but I'm left wondering if there's any real need for something like that. What's the purpose ? It seems to me that without having access to the articles there's very limited benefit.

Not trying to be a negative nelly, I just don't get it.

 

[mrmopar]

That is a lot of work! I have the Sept 87 issue, in fact all of the BB Card Magazines through 1993 and many of them after that when they changed to Sports Cards, but I wouldn't have the free time to go through them like you have, unless that is only what is listed on the table of contests page.

It would be nice for someone looking to collect a certain type of item or player and would be a handy guide for purchasing the right issues.

 

[DaClyde]

Interesting idea but I'm left wondering if there's any real need for something like that. What's the purpose ? It seems to me that without having access to the articles there's very limited benefit.

Not trying to be a negative nelly, I just don't get it.

A lot of player collectors go far beyond cards, and like to pick up magazines with their player on the cover or featured in an article. I mean, why have checklists of a lot of baseball cards you don't have? What possible use could that be?

For me, this is strictly a research tool. Back in the 80s, there were actual articles in these magazines that went insanely in-depth on a variety of topics. Modern hobby magazines don't really have articles anymore (just unpaid advertisements and the occasional collector profile), but this would give people with a slightly deeper interest in the hobby a quick reference to help them figure out where to look. Access to the magazines is just matter of picking them up. I'm tempted to start scanning what I have (that will fit on the scanner bed). These would be great publications for K+W Media to offer up to Google Books.

 

[Loyalty32]

Awesome idea! GREAT work! I always thought it would be cool if there was a way you could track a cards monthly value of a period of years. I know Dawson's RC booked as high as $60.00 and settled around the $20.00 for a long period of time.

Thanks
Craig

 

[BiggioDiogu759]

Great work

 

[mintman2]

A lot of player collectors go far beyond cards, and like to pick up magazines with their player on the cover or featured in an article. I mean, why have checklists of a lot of baseball cards you don't have? What possible use could that be?

For me, this is strictly a research tool. Back in the 80s, there were actual articles in these magazines that went insanely in-depth on a variety of topics. Modern hobby magazines don't really have articles anymore (just unpaid advertisements and the occasional collector profile), but this would give people with a slightly deeper interest in the hobby a quick reference to help them figure out where to look. Access to the magazines is just matter of picking them up. I'm tempted to start scanning what I have (that will fit on the scanner bed). These would be great publications for K+W Media to offer up to Google Books.

I know people collect magazines based on who is on the cover. I guess it just never occured to me people would/do collect magazines for an article contained therin.

 

[DaClyde]

I know people collect magazines based on who is on the cover. I guess it just never occured to me people would/do collect magazines for an article contained therin.

Player collectors are crazy people.

 

[sandman20]

Neat idea. I have been wanting to do something like this too.