Project to digitize film magazines - now on-line

David Pierce · Post by **David Pierce** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 2:27 am

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.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... library%22

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:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmalti ... _research/

and the project brochure is on-line at:
http://www.mediahistoryproject.org/

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

moviepas · Post by **moviepas** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 5:23 am

All very interesting and something I like to see being done but...
I have tried to copy from this site before and the files stop downloading at 39mb and will not open saying that the file has been damaged. But I tried and tried again and that is all I got.

Also what is the difference between PDF & b/wPDF(a slightly larger file)???

I use the latest Acrobat reader.

Thanks

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:23 am

David, how wonderful! This is an awesome piece of work that is dear to all researchers. THANKS.

Harlett O'Dowd · Post by **Harlett O'Dowd** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:34 am

rudyfan wrote:David, how wonderful! This is an awesome piece of work that is dear to all researchers. THANKS.

David, you shall certainly receive your reward in heaven - and hopefully on earth as well.

Can you possibly get some of the other trades (Publix Opinion, Variety, Billboard, The Clipper) in the future? They all covered film as well.

quietone · Post by **quietone** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:22 am

What a wonderful project! I am a librarian and our students regularly have a project where they must use primary sources to research popular culture of the 20th century. These are invaluable in so many ways!!

Thank you for all this work!

urbanora · Post by **urbanora** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 1:54 pm

The best we can do is to start downloading and using, as well as spreading the word. Those who have funded this project will want to see that their munificence is justified. We've been calling out for vintage film journals to be made available online - now we need to demonstrate that we meant it.

Blog post on the project here:

http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2010/03/ ... -and-more/

Frederica · Post by **Frederica** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 1:59 pm

TICKLED BLUE. Thanks!

Darren Nemeth · Post by **Darren Nemeth** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:18 pm

Great project! These pages are excelent showing old fame. A lot of those actors and actresses probably exist only in those pages.

If looking for proof readers, there is a hard crease on Page 173.
http://ia341320.us.archive.org//load_dj ... 0broo.djvu

Since I've had this new scanner I've been scanning stuff I hope archive.org would like to have.

Another publication to consider is THEATER magazine. A lot of still famous silent films stars had conquored New York before getting into film. There is an article that looks down on motion pictures in one of the 1907 or 1908 issues.

Keep 'em coming!

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:13 am

Again, I'm thrilled with this news and I posted a shout out on my humble blog to get the word out, too.

http://strictly-vintage-hollywood.blogs ... y-and.html

Rob Farr · Post by **Rob Farr** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 6:41 pm

The technology exists to scan the microfilm versions of the trade papers in the Library of Congress Motion Picture Reading Room to a thumb drive. It has to be done page-by-page, and the result is no better than what you see in a microfilm viewer: a b&w image with lots of scratches and lines. I would offer to scan a trade paper, but I think that what you are doing - preserving the brilliant colors - is much more valuable. Maybe the b&w microfilm version can be used in an instance when no original issue is available.

Post by **silentfilm** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 8:58 pm

I've got some individual issues of Moving Picture World, Motion Picture Weekly, Reel Life, and Photoplay, but no bound volumes.

David Pierce · Post by **David Pierce** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 6:38 am

moviepas wrote:I have tried to copy from this site before and the files stop downloading at 39mb and will not open saying that the file has been damaged. But I tried and tried again and that is all I got.
Also what is the difference between PDF & b/wPDF(a slightly larger file)???

The download limitation sounds like it could be your ISP throttling your usage. The difference between PDF and b/w PDF is exactly what it sounds like. Usually the smaller volume is half the size of the original, but that's not the case with these volumes. In the case of books, often a b/w PDF is just as useful, particularly if you are using print-on-demand.

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:David, you shall certainly receive your reward in heaven - and hopefully on earth as well.

Can you possibly get some of the other trades (Publix Opinion, Variety, Billboard, The Clipper) in the future? They all covered film as well.

I've had plenty of rewards on earth, and this is an attempt to give back. Some of the journals you mention are oversized (along with the NY Dramatic Mirror); the quality of the paper varies, and they are too large for the Internet Archive scanning system.

The microfilm of The Clipper and NYDM were made by NY Public Library in the 1940s. There are no long runs of bound issues, so any project would have to work from the microfilm which is poor by modern standards.

I've seen issues of Publix Opinion, but it's not high on the list. Billboard is around (nice run at LC), but I haven't found it to be of great value in my research (1925-30).

Rob Farr wrote:The technology exists to scan the microfilm versions of the trade papers in the Library of Congress Motion Picture Reading Room to a thumb drive. It has to be done page-by-page, and the result is no better than what you see in a microfilm viewer: a b&w image with lots of scratches and lines.

I've done this too, and it's a lot better than using a microfilm printer, but the process doesn't scale.

silentfilm wrote:I've got some individual issues of Moving Picture World, Motion Picture Weekly, Reel Life, and Photoplay, but no bound volumes.

The Internet Archive scanners are optimized to work with books. That's why you have occasional places where the magazine was bound too close and you lose the gutter. Let's focus on the easy stuff first - bound volumes in good condition - and then worry about filling in gaps.

Thanks to those of you who contacted me off-list and offered to help. I'll keep moving forward and hopefully with the supportive blog posts (most recently Dave Kehr at http://www.davekehr.com/?p=538) this material will become widely used.

David Pierce