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Hello Jane and Fiona,

I'm doing a pre-Christmas clean up and am debating what to do with my extensive magazine collection.  

Do you have plans to index back issues of magazines or is your strategy to increase the scope of magazines you index but focus on new issues?

I have an extensive collection of:

Gourmet

Donna Hay

Food & Wine

BBC Food

Are there any plans to index these collections?  If so, I'll hang on to them and anxiously wait in anticipation!!  

Thanks!

We definitely do plan to work our way through back issues so don't throw them away.  We realize these are as treasured as cookbooks to their owners and having a searchable index would make them so much more valuable to collectors.  It's really just time and money that is holding us back from doing them more quickly.

Adding magazine issues is quite a lot of work as all details have to be entered manually plus the cover has to be sourced or scanned.  This is very different from books where we import the data from Nielsen or Amazon.  For that reason we only add magazines if they are to be indexed.  We are always happy to add any issue of a magazine if a member wants to index it - just email us at [email protected].

We have recently added Heirloom Gardener at a member's request, another member is indexing Vegetarian Times and we have a member who is working her way through a UK magazine, Food and Travel.

We don't need to add more back issues of existing magazines to tell which ones we should focus on as we can tell by the number of members who own the oldest issues - Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Cooking Light, Saveur, Fine Cooking and Cuisine (NZ) we will definitely be working further back on.  We are completely up to date with Cook's Illustrated, Lucky Peach, Jamie Magazine (UK), and Feast (Australia).

Members who haven't yet checked out our magazine section should take a look - most of the magazines have the recipes available for free on their websites so you can add the magazines to your Bookshelf even if you don't subscribe and then access the recipes via Recipe Online links.  There are some wonderful recipes available to add to your collection.

Hello!  I'm *very* new :) but very eager, too.  I noticed not very many Cook's Country are available to add to my bookshelf.  I would be happy to start indexing them, if that would be helpful (though, being a newbie, I'm not sure how long it will take me to get the swing of it).  I only have a few, unfortunately, but I'll do what I have.  Also, I have noticed a couple of the cover photos of CI specialty mags are missing (that have been indexed, I believe), and I could provide them.  Also,  I have several of both CI's and CC's specials that aren't indexed.  If I can help, just let me know what my first move should be.  Thanks!  So VERY excited to have joined this community - it's *just* what I've been needing!

Oh!  And Wilton yearbooks - a lot of these are missing, and I can definitely fill them in (a few of the missing books, as well).  I stopped collecting some time in the early 2000s, but up until then I have almost every one of the yearbooks, even back to the 70s.

We have indexed the last 3 years of Cook's Country and we would be happy to go further back. The main issue we have indexing back issues of magazines is getting hold of the older issues. With some magazines such as Delicious and Waitrose in the UK the magazine themselves has sent us their entire archive. If you (or any other EYB member) want to volunteer to index back issues that would be great. Email us at [email protected] with the issues you want to do and we will add them to the Library. You can then request to index them. Also if you can scan any missing covers you can send them there too and we will add them to the listings.

How generous of companies, to give you entire archives!!  I imagine that's pretty rare, though.  Last night, as I lay ready for sleep, I was dreaming of having back all the issues of Gourmet that my FIL collected.....years, and years worth.  It was overwhelming, so I tore them apart, saving must-have recipes.  Eventually, though, I had to admit, since it wasn't easy to find what I wanted, I wasn't using any of them, and recycled them.  If only....   Well, thank you for the quick response, Jane.  I'm hoping indexing will become my new "Facebook", something I'm able to do in-between other tasks.  

Originally Posted by: Jane

We have indexed the last 3 years of Cook's Country and we would be happy to go further back. The main issue we have indexing back issues of magazines is getting hold of the older issues. 

Actually, you DO have indexed past issues, because the bound copies of each year exist under "books".  Just as they do with Cook's Illustrated, Boston Common Press offers a single, bound edition of the previous year's Cook's Country.  Other than the index at the beginning of the bound edition everything is exactly the same - covers and all.  The only thing that needs to be done is a photo of each cover, and photos of the recipes, at the back of each issue.  I'd love to do that, but I'm sure someone more experienced (and with better computer programs) could do so much more easily.  Hope that helps!

Okay, I'm an idiot.  I didn't look to see if they were actually indexed.  What an over-eager goober!  Well, I guess I finally have my excuse to get the other copies I lack, and get crackin' on indexing!  LOL!

I hadn't realized that Cook's Country produce an Annual in the same way Cook's Illustrated do. That makes it much easier as getting hold of the annuals is easier than getting the magazines. So we will index the annuals then copy over the recipes to the magazines.  

Yay!!  

Double yay!  Hope it will be soon!  I have numerous Cook's Country Annuals.  Thank you!

Any time frame for the Cook's Country Annuals?  Would I get an e-mail when they are done?

bittrette - can you please add your requests to the Forum topic How to suggest magazines for indexing?