I am throwing away my National Geographic collection:

Don't do it! 🙂

Carefully check the quality of the digitized NG collection. I have an old version of it, from the late 90s, and the quality is absolutely horrible. The text is barely readable... I have heard that the collection released in 2001/2002 is no good either.

Looks like a new version is due to be released soon. It'll definitely be much better, but still... 8 DVDs. That should be around 38-68 GB in total depending on the type of DVD. Probably around 1380 issues. So 27-49 MB per issue?

Even if the quality is good, do you think someone will be able to read the issues in 20 years [without going through a series of technical hurdles]? I'm not just talking about the fact that DVDs will be obsolete by then. The actual issues on these collections are usually protected and need to be viewed in certain proprietary software, made for a certain set of operating systems (in this case XP, Vista, etc.), and these will also certainly be obsolete by then.

It's not that they will be impossible to use in 20 years, but it would probably cost time and/or money. No one will find them and spontaneously start reading... (unless s/he's a computer geek with a little patience)
 
raid said:
Guys,
I am negotiating with my wife regarding the NG magazines, and I shared with her some of what I have seen here.

Before Barrett commmented here, Francisco's reminder to me that I have girls who can read was what made the difference. I will call a carpenter tomorrow to see whether he can install some shelves in our new home so that the NG magazines can be kept. My wife would rather have me give up my large number of lrage sized photography books and keep the NG.

I will try to find a solution which allows me to keep the NG for my girls.
Click to expand...

Accumulating old things that mean something to us can get to be a pain to others who don't share of passion, or our memories. I constantly face that with my wife.

I can only say I agree with your decision to preserve these for you daughters, and who knows, any future grandchildren as well. Some of those magazines are going to get worn out, and still be kept. Some day we may really find a way to browse CDs and DVDs like we now browse magazines. I don't think it will ever be quite the same. Those who do it won't know that, but they will have missed something.

Good idea to keep them as long as possible. Put a couple of chairs and a small table close to where you place the shelves if room permits.
 
"There are two things in this world that are infinite, the universe and stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the first." (Probably Einstein's wisest observation.) In a fit of "digital ecstacy" I "threw" away my 30 years of NG when the first digitized Voyager version came out. It cost a mint, worked only with a few versions of Mac OS 7, 8 & 9. I'm left with a useless bunch of LOW resolution image files, no way of searching through them and the CDs occupying valuable shelfspace. Now that young boys no longer have to rely on the NG for their first introduction to the general anatomy of the opposite sex, there's got to be some place in your house for these gems to live on as their worth to the curious young intellect grows by the year. On the wall of a landing, between some curtain rails and the ceiling, or maybe the best place of all - the bathroom. As the years pass, they can be read seemingly forever. When you finish the most recent, it's time to start all over with the first issue in your collection. Maybe Einstein should have added "reading the National Geographic", not quite infinite, but getting rid of them was in my case, surely stupid!

- Børre
 
wlewisiii said:
If I lived anywhere near you, Raid, I'd take them all. If nothing else, I'd leave them where my son could discover them at his leisure... a very effective form of self-education would then happen.

William
Click to expand...

I have a stack of them at the toilet. For reading that is.

My 8-year old son spends a lot of time on the can 😀
 
I've just cancelled my NG subscription due to the Green American slant the whole publication has taken on. Looking back through the years, NG is a pitiful shell of its former balanced and scientific self.
 
borrel said:
*snip* Now that young boys no longer have to rely on the NG for their first introduction to the general anatomy of the opposite sex,*snip*
Click to expand...

Ah yes, that reminds me of the difference between black breasts and white breasts. White breasts are in Playboy, black breasts are in National Geographic! Or so the old saw went...

I've no idea whether that holds true or not, but I certainly have a soft spot for NG as lavatory-reading-sized introduction to many, many, many fascinating subjects, and bringing the world to my rural backwater.

Adrian
 
My brother started before me with the collection and reading of NG magazines,and during the tough embargo years on Iraq, his only request from me [living in the USA] had always been getting the NG issues that did not make it anymore to Iraq. I would go to a fleamarket in Pensacola to buy him 10-20 issues at a time and then I would ship them to a relative in Jordan, who then would send it with another relative to Iraq.

He had a NG world map on one of the walls in hos room,and we would stare at that map for long times to visualize what's out there outside Iraq.

He got the second copy of the 1958 issue of Iraq.

I will call the carpenter today about some shelves being addded to existing shelf space. It's a good thing that a RF thread can bring out support for a good issue.
 
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Im really glad you'll keep them! When I was a kid, my parents were subscribed to "Life" (Spanish edition), and I loved looking at the photos and reading the ocasional article. It was sad when they decided to end the Spanish edition... My mother threw all of them out later, including one copy I wanted to keep (but neglected to tell her).

Take care! 🙂
 
And THEN ONE DAY!

And THEN ONE DAY!

raid said:
Is this like moving from film cameras to digital cameras?

It may sound strange at first, but I have been thinking about the technology advances, while I was packing away hundreds of magazines. The entire collection of NG can be obtained on CD ROM, so the paper version of the NG has to go.
Click to expand...

And Then ONE DAY.... you'll pick up one of those CD's and find that you no longer have a device (drive) in your computer that will read the disks.

And I'm not talking in the far distant future. In the fifteen plus years I have worked on computers (technically and teaching), I've seen a number of types of media disappear. CD drives will undoubtedly be added to this list in the future, by my reckoning.

Troublemaker or not, I enjoy the computer as a tool. However, nothing changes, or disappears faster in terms of technology than in the arena of personal computing.

BTW.... I feel the same way about digital storage of images. Eventually, however you have them stored today will no longer be accessible in a few years time.
 
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kuzano said:
And Then ONE DAY.... you'll pick up one of those CD's and find that you no longer have a device (drive) in your computer that will read the disks.

And I'm not talking in the far distant future. In the fifteen plus years I have worked on computers (technically and teaching), I've seen a number of types of media disappear. CD drives will undoubtedly be added to this list in the future, by my reckoning.

Troublemaker or not, I enjoy the computer as a tool. However, nothing changes, or disappears faster in terms of technology than in the arena of personal computing.

BTW.... I feel the same way about digital storage of images. Eventually, however you have them stored today will no longer be accessible in a few years time.
Click to expand...

Hey, I just transferred my data from floppies. ;-)

I have a USB floppy reader, next is the CD/DVD USB reader, my good tech friend just sold his 30 yr. old 1 bit computer, at a profit, to a collector.

I need to toss a few desktop computers, may pull the hard drives and store them.

I need a new desktop and just hope the data HD on the last one (IDE) will hook up, or I may be looking for a cradle for that to use USB as well.

Regards, John
 
I agree that the magazines are extraordinary and well worth keeping, but I am surprised that no one has mentioned the negative aspects of this magazine. As stated in a wonderful PBS documentary series, "American Photography, A Century of Images"
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/americanphotography/
National Geographic is a deeply problematic publication. It perpetuates certain western imperialistic notions as well as ethnic and racial stereotypes - in both the articles and the photographs. I did not discourage my own kids from enjoying the magazine, but I also helped them to understand the context in which the articles and images were being presented. The contemporary National Geographic maintains these old attitudes albeit in far more subtle ways. For this reason, I much prefer the articles on nature -flowers and animals- over those on particular societies or peoples. From my own work, I can assure you that some NG photographers (not all) arrive in their "exotic" locations and behave not much differently than colonial travelers did 100 years ago. But everything in context, if they magazines were mine, I'd find a way to keep them.
 
Raid,

Half Price books used to buy and sell vintage magazines, but they would never take NG, even for free, because it seems that everyone with a subscription tended to keep them, and they call up all the time to dispose of them. Though, "they are too good to toss", you may have a tough time finding someplace to take them. Lower level schools might, for the kids to cut up and paste the photos to their projects.

When I was a kid spending summers on my grandparents' farm, I would read the stacks of old magazines of any kind I could find, Pop Mechanics, etc. -- what ever, I would have killed for NG.

I did find copies of particular Life Magazines that I liked from HP Books, with the idea of framing a few issues. I gave copies from the week some of my friends were born. Any weeks with anyone famous were a premium, but I have seen covers framed, sometimes between two layers of glass, for wall display.

I would ask for the copy of the month I was born, but am afraid NG did not have pictures then. ;-)

There were some great classics though, anything with Doc. Edgerton's work would be classic to me, I think some of the first were of Hummingbirds with sharp stop action of their wings. I would buy some of those, as would many others here I am sure.

So, some might be picked out and saved, certainly the birth months of your kids. ;-) I think you might frame some others.

ps-- a friend is disposing of his collection, but I don't think it goes back to the 50's, though I will ask.

John
 
A lot depends on whether my two girls will be mesmerized by the internet alone or whether I can coax them into spending some time reading useful magazine articles. They are now too young to know what they want (5 and 6). Maybe I have to keep the NG for a while to then figure out what to do with the magazines. I have mainly issues from 1982 [shortly after I arrived to the USA] on, but I picked up a few older issues on the way. I also have many of NG books on specialized topics.
 
JSU said:
If ever there was a visual icon that I can't stand, it is McCurry's image of the young Afghan girl. She looks terrified in that image.
But it is hard to deny a compelling story: ...
Click to expand...

Of course she does. She's a refugee in a brutal war that just made her an orphan. That's why it's a compelling photo.
 
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