Recovering old Spiritualist Magazines

Now here is something I would like to get behind recovering in eform all the early journals and magazines still available. They can then be made available much more widely. Well done Marc Demarest

http://www.ehbritten.org/blog/2009/11/economics-of-recovering-spiritualist.html

This is a great idea. In doing my own research, just trying to find Two Worlds newspapers and magazines from 1948 to 1993 for me has proved incredibly difficult and I am still looking. Very few organisations have retained them, especially the more recent editions from the last 50 years. In addition, many institutions have sold the old historic volumes off into private hands making them out of reach of the normal researcher. What would be incredibly helpful for researchers is a list of institiutions, what periodicals they hold and whether they allow access to them for genuine research purposes. Perhaps I am giving myself a task here!!

The real solution for us would be a Spiritualist library where hard copies of all Spiritualist publications from 1848 to the present day can be pulled together to make a comprehensive archive and these can then be digitally archived. All those wishing to access them could then pay an annual fee and if sufficient people are interested, the project should be self sufficient. The hard part is finding a home for the library of the periodicals and enough willing volunteers to get the project off the ground.

Old periodicals like Two Worlds, the Spiritualist, Psychic News etc chronicle the history and changing face of our movement and if these are lost, we lose a huge amount of our history, our heritage and our knowledge.

Anyone else got any ideas on how this could best be done?

I think an international library or a decent register would be fantastic Martin. I also think you are right about the records from the middle period being equally at risk.

I have tracked where a lot of the periodicals are once before so I cold do so again. You are luckier in the UK than we are here the only good collections are in the ANL in Canberra or Melbourne. However, there is probably an excellent set in the VSU in Melbourne which is the longest running Spiritualist organisation in the world.

The USA does have some excellent collections. I managed to get Some pdf'd for me in Texas cost about $30 for 15 pages but it was a unique collection.