Looking for old Skin Diver and other magazines (For archive)

[telemonster]

I visited the Diving History Museum with a buddy a few weeks ago. He was commenting on their periodical collection, and I suggested to him that much of it is likely scanned an online via the Internet Archive or other resources. I checked around to show him, and to my surprise none of it is.

Have there been any efforts to digitize this stuff? I posted a wanted ad on Craigslist to start trying to fish up issues of Skin Diver which seems to be the longer running periodical but figure I should make sure there aren't duplicated efforts. eBay has some but the prices are pretty high. Any leads from you all? Perhaps old library copy sets?

It is my goal to cut the magazines in half where the staples are and feed them through a duplex scanner to convert to PDF. It's the most time efficient way.

This isn't a passion project of mine or anything, I'm just a data hoarder and think everything print needs to be converted to digital.

Thoughts?

 

[Compressor]

Thanks @telemonster. I am not sure about an answer but will wait for others to respond.

 

[Mike Lev]

There is a lot on ebay right now. I don't think they will ship. Some early stuff in Cal.I wouldn't cut any old issues apart. I have all of them. No I don't have time to do scans ect. That would take forever. The site you checked out Ron is the owner. He is working on doing what you are trying. But he is very busy also.

 

[Akimbo]

Have there been any efforts to digitize this stuff?

It is my understanding that the copyrights are still in force for Skin Diver Magazine. It would be great to get a license for the digital rights because it is probably the best source for the history of Scuba diving.

 

[Akimbo]

@Sam Miller III is the only person I know of with a complete set of Skin Diver Magazines. They are bound so would not be suitable for auto-feed scanning.

 

[icechip]

Skin Diver Magazine digitized would be an incredible trove of information.

 

[telemonster]

It doesn't have to be the complete collection end to end. Who cares. Right now it seems there is zilch out there. In general it is my guess there just isn't nearly the interest in archiving SCUBA stuff as there is in the vintage computer stuff and vintage radio and audio stuff.

In the vintage computer world, we see the youtube effect and access to information bringing in new younger people who are interested in the subject. It's wild to see kids 20 years younger than a computer system getting excited about it, and they know a ton about it.

Back to subject of scanning:

I have seen setups that can bound periodicals (most use a wedge that pulls vacuum on the left and right pages, along with cameras shooting images of both sides. But not sure I want to go down that path.

Wouldn't it be worth it to sacrifice a set of these magazines to archive it forever and share it out forever?

 

[Mike Lev]

No not to me. Maybe you can buy a complete set for $3,000 to $5,000. and sacrifice them.

 

[lowwall]

You would either need a very dedicated hobbyist or some sort of community effort to do this. I'd toss in a few bucks if someone wanted to try to organize something.

A poster on https://vintagescuba.proboards.com/thread/5123/1962-ads-skin-diver-magazine has scanned the first Skin Diver. I'll attach it below.

archive.org doesn't have any Skin Divers. But they do have a few issues of Scubapro Diving & Snorkeling from the late '80s and early '90s that may be of interest to fans of their regs: Internet Archive Search: scubapro

 

[David Wilson]

I wholeheartedly agree that a digitised version of the complete run of Skin Diver magazines would be a treasure trove for everybody interested in vintage diving and a precious asset to diving researchers and historians. Such a project cannot be beyond the wit of man (or woman) when a complete 30-year run (1962-1992) of the USSR's Skin Diver equivalent Спортсмен-подводник [Sportsmen-Podvodnik = Underwater Sportsman] has been scanned, converted to PDF files and posted online at Спортсмен-подводник. Журнал о подводном плавании. ВСЕ сборники СПОРТСМЕН-ПОДВОДНИКа .. Here are the front and inside covers of the first issue of this Soviet diving magazine:

All that is required is the spirit of sharing. When I win a piece of historical periodical diving literature on eBay, be it a catalogue or a magazine, I almost always scan its contents straight away and post it online at Underwater Swimming on my shared Google Drive for everybody's benefit. When I won a copy of the November 1956 Exposure Suits issue of Skin Diver a few years ago, I practised what I preached and you will find the resulting PDF file at SkinDiver_Nov1956. So now we have access to two entire Skin Diver numbers online, the first December 1951 issue and the November 1956 issue. Anyone prepared to scan and post a third 1950s issue from their Skin Diver collection? Let's forget "completeness" for the moment and think very small for a change instead of expecting somebody else to shoulder the entire burden of organisation and digitisation. 千里之行，始於足下: A thousand miles begins with a single step.