MAgazine Retention Period

Giving them away at your club is a good idea.  I used to take advantage of that when I was starting out in the hobby.  I wanted all the information I could get.  I don't keep them though.  I read them and toss them immediately.  

I keep my hard copies for at least 2 months then I give them to one of my local train guys......Paul 2

I hold on to 'em until the next issue comes. I tear the pages out of old magazines of articles of interest and scan them into the computer, and toss the rest. I have a dedicated (and backed-up) hard drive of past magazine articles organized and easily accessed. 

I hold onto them too long, because I don't have a good outlet for them.  I did find an HO club to donate all my Model Railroader magazines to a couple years after I switched to O gauge.  Now I have all my OGR magazines dating back to 2012 when I first discovered it.  I could ask my friends at the Pittsburgh Independent HiRailers if they want them to give away at shows, but I would still keep the last couple years and a few issues that are special to me.

The main reason I went to OGR's Digital Edition was to get rid of magazines.  I have never looked back, download the edition to my PC and it takes up no physical space.

Like Mark I also don’t have an outlet for them so I still have them. Three 4 drawer file cabinets full of O Gauge,  CTT and several other assorted magazines on O Gauge stuff. 

In my modelling heyday I kept various publications for reference quite a few years, i.e. Pacific Rail News, Extra 2200 South, CTC Board, etc. Then I saved only articles I thought would be needed in binders. Finally, everything went to recycling. For the very little modelling work I do now the internet works for me..... No more clutter.

Agree, I hold on to them too long.  I've just started moving some of them out.  

I don’t keep them any longer.  After I’ve read an issue cover to cover it goes into the recycling bin.  

Curt

Since the digital subscription offers every 300+ issues, I’m thinking what’s the point of keeping them. I hate to just recycle but may do just that if I don’t find someone to give them to

Mark Boyce posted:

Since the digital subscription offers every 300+ issues, I’m thinking what’s the point of keeping them. I hate to just recycle but may do just that if I don’t find someone to give them to

I prefer to sit on my recliner with the paper mag.

I still read a paper newspaper too

Retirement+Downsizing+Diminished Time Reserves = Digital Subscription...

The OGR offer of all the back issues in digital format finally brought me back as a subscriber after many years of lapse. It is a brilliant piece of marketing and...it worked on me. It was an elegant solution to just what you're dealing with right now. I gave away and /or recycled all my many years of train magazines over ten years ago. 

Part of the problem is we were all taught as children that ALL books are valuable and precious and printed material is worthy of protection and veneration. As with so many things we were taught as children we are coming to realize it "ain't necessarily so"...

One of the first "organizing" experts I used to follow in the early 1980's was Don Aslett. His helpful tips soon got me off the " all printed material saved forever" bandwagon. It was quite liberating.

John

On the contrary:  print IS worthy of preservation.  Unlike electronic material, it doesn't go anywhere when the plug is pulled or the wrong button is pressed.

I not only keep all mine permanently--if I have to downsize, my mags and books will be the LAST thing to go--I keep mags that are older than I am (Trains going 'WAY back).

Lionelski posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

Since the digital subscription offers every 300+ issues, I’m thinking what’s the point of keeping them. I hate to just recycle but may do just that if I don’t find someone to give them to

I prefer to sit on my recliner with the paper mag.

I still read a paper newspaper too

Oh, I prefer a paper magazine and newspaper as well.  Those are what I read.  I was just pointing out OGR is providing an option for those who are space constrained as we are.

palallin posted:

On the contrary:  print IS worthy of preservation.  Unlike electronic material, it doesn't go anywhere when the plug is pulled or the wrong button is pressed.

I not only keep all mine permanently--if I have to downsize, my mags and books will be the LAST thing to go--I keep mags that are older than I am (Trains going 'WAY back).

Same, almost.  I have RMC back to '55, several decades of NG&SLG, nearly complete Traction & Models, near complete Trolley Talk, near complete O Scale News, and complete O Scale Trains.  Exception: I tossed all of the OGR ~20 years ago and never looked back.

MartyE posted:

The main reason I went to OGR's Digital Edition was to get rid of magazines.  I have never looked back, download the edition to my PC and it takes up no physical space.

John Meyncke posted:

Retirement+Downsizing+Diminished Time Reserves = Digital Subscription...

I want to remind all of you that with the launch of our new Subscription Portal, every issue of OGR - 50+ years worth - is available in the OGR Digital Library. Looking back on the old issues from the 70s and 80s is fascinating reading. And some of those old articles are timeless. Many of the modeling ideas they present are still valid today!

All the issues can be downloaded as Adobe PDF files, so you can build your "digital collection" on your computer or tablet.

• If you are already an OGR Subscriber and would like to add a digital subscription, CLICK HERE to log into your account. If you don't know your account number, click on the "Don't know your account number?" link on the page. We'll automatically send you an email with that info.
  
  
• If you are not an OGR subscriber but would like to purchase a new Digital Subscription, CLICK HERE.

$29.95 gets you access to 310 issues of OGR! That's less than 10 cents per issue!

You are right, Rich!  Even for a paper lover like me, I couldn't pass up the paper and digital subscription.  Also as a fairly recent subscriber, 2012 was the first I knew OGR existed, I can go back and look at old articles like the one on Marty FitzHenry back in the '90s.

As others have said, I much prefer reading the paper copy of anything. However, my allocated storage space for paper copies of everything is reaching critical mass! 

I was a paper subscriber and added digital when it became available. Will probably continue to take the paper edition for reading, but may switch to keeping only the digital copies for space savings.

The additional back issues added to the digital archive is great to have. Every magazine issue ever made is now in there, very nice! 

I love my magazines, but I generally keep them until I try and clear space in my storage room and I get mad at them. A couple of years ago I posted two tubs of CTT, OGR and Lionel catalogs for free. A guy picked them up and said they were going to his friend the train guy. I have also reached the breaking point and thrown some out. Just this Sunday, I dumped a stack of JP (Jeeps) magazines in the recycling tub. Hate to do it, but space is at a premium.

I keep most of my old magazines.  I enjoy reading in bed and I don't take a computer to bed like some people that I know.  Print magazines have the advantage that I don't have to wait for them to download.  I tried reading the new Lionel catalog last night online.  Although I have a fast computer and internet service, it took minutes for each page to download.  I only got half way through the catalog after about an hour.  

I am a member of a club.  I have found that most of the younger members almost never read print magazines.  They get all of their information online - for free.  We can't give magazines away at the club to members or the public.  It is a sad situation.  Recycling seems to be the only option.  NH Joe

I have OGR, and its predecessor OSR, dating back to the late 1980s, and some of the older articles and layouts are treasures, worth reading and re-reading every couple of years.

I do maintain have a stack however, mostly CTT's and some OGRs, that I've designated as not worth keeping and will either give away or recycle some day.

Lionelski posted:

Mark Boyce posted:

Since the digital subscription offers every 300+ issues, I’m thinking what’s the point of keeping them. I hate to just recycle but may do just that if I don’t find someone to give them to

I prefer to sit on my recliner with the paper mag.

I still read a paper newspaper too

Yes, while I don't save magazines, I do prefer a paper magazine for reading.  I work from home and I eat lunch alone at my kitchen table every day.   Reading a magazine while eating is more practical than using a phone or tablet.  I don't even wear reading glasses yet but no one escapes that fate (if you make it much past age 45).  So that day will come and I suspect I'll appreciate a good mag even more.

I bring mine to our club where I set up two "free" magazine racks. I plan to go digital in the future. 

New Haven Joe posted:

……..  I tried reading the new Lionel catalog last night online.  Although I have a fast computer and internet service, it took minutes for each page to download.  I only got half way through the catalog after about an hour.  ………

 NH Joe

I hate to tell you Joe, but you don't have a fast computer and internet service - something is wrong.   I have a 4 year old computer and mid-level internet service and page turning/opening was quick and seamless.

Do you have a "computer guru" that can look into this for you?

I used to subscribe to too many magazines of all sorts, especially weeklies.  I would rotate my stock by only keeping the most recent 4 issues regardless of publication frequency.  Around the time that I got back into model railroading (2010-11) is the time I started going online in all of my reading with the exception of the magazines for all of my hobbies.  Those I had to have as hard copy.  I've cut down on my hobbies but still have all the old hobby magazines - even the hobbies that I no longer partake -  in plastic bins in a storage facility, probably because of the "keeping printed documents" philosophy mentioned earlier in this thread.   I have purged many bins of printed materials over the past 3 years, except for the hobby ones.  Have this thing in my head about keeping them for reference material. 

I became a OGR digital subscriber last year and enjoy it.  Storage space is running out and reading this thread is telling me to purge the old hobby magazines... all of them, and I will survive.  Maybe just keep a rolling inventory of the last 12 months of both OGR, CTT, etc., and move on from there.   We'll see.

Not to go off track, but one particular article from Run 77 (Nov-Dec 1982) makes me chuckle.  O Scale is Extinct according to a hobby shop owner 37 years ago, and also according to present-day model railroaders posting every month in various online forms that model trains are dying.  Lets see what they say in 2057 when reading ancient publications from 2020 

I keep all of them and then give several mags each to the non-model railroaders who visit my layout. This is in hopes of them maybe joining the hobby. It's best for all of us if our hobby is kept alive and my selfish reason is that it might give my heirs a broader audience to sell to!

TJ

Only recently have I been giving consideration to finding a source for some fifteen years of OGR and CTT. Without an index for story location I never really go back to look for information that interested me in the past. I really like the printed versions of the magazines as I can take them along to my deck, the car, McDonald's, doctor's office, etc. Already, the growth of FB and other web-based sources of information of all kinds has taken me away from the forum more than I like. 

I have a bunch of OGR mags, some CCT, TCA Quarterly's and a big stack of Model Railroader starting from 1972. I never threw one away. Now you are making me question that...

George

I am in the process of recycling a collection of hundreds of magazines, some hobby-related and some not, that I have managed to accumulate over the past several decades. 99% of them were never re-read after I first received them. It is clutter and a fire hazard.

I had to make a decision about 10 years ago and unfortunately put all my old magazines to the recycle due to space. I did offer them to friends but no one wanted any. 

Way back in the mid '80s, I inherited a bunch of very early Model railroader, Model Railroad Craftsman, and a few others I cannot recall.  There were hundreds of issues dating back to the 1930s.  I breezed through most of them, but as we all know, very little was devoted to the three rail Lionel or two rail American Flyer trains in those days.

So I placed an ad in a newspaper and sold them all to a single buyer at $.50/copy.  I doubt they could fetch that price today.  I have even sold all of my early Lionel Club periodicals and another stack of "Third rail" ( I think that's the title ) a few years ago, before I returned to "O" gauge trains.   

The bottom line is this; Printed copy of any kind is a true historical record, while internet information can be altered quite easily.  That's not to say that we should keep every magazine and book we encounter in our lifetime.  How many books and periodicals do we have sitting on shelves and in storage that we never pull out once we've read them ?  And why pay for storage for such things.    

We also inherited, recently, hundreds of history, cookbooks, novels, etc. from my late aunt.  Only the history books were taken by my niece who loves to read and will have the time to read as she has Progressive MS.  But the other books, cookbooks, novels and miscellany are sitting in cabinets and on shelves awaiting boxing up and who knows what fate.  

Like Mike H., I prefer to read a magazine while sitting at the kitchen table eating.  Novels are read in the head.  It's the one place where one does not usually get disturbed.....LOL

TonkaNut posted:

I keep all of them and then give several mags each to the non-model railroaders who visit my layout. This is in hopes of them maybe joining the hobby. It's best for all of us if our hobby is kept alive and my selfish reason is that it might give my heirs a broader audience to sell to!

TJ

TJ, Giving a magazine or two to each non-model railroader visitor who comes is an excellent idea. 

I do have to add to what I wrote earlier.  I was thinking of it when typing another thought, then forgot to put it in.  Last summer our church did something new.  They wanted to start a summer reading program with magazines.  They asked for members to put magazines in a box in the fellowship hall.  They could be Christian magazines or on any tasteful topic.  I didn't ask, but I think so someone didn't dump 50 years worth of a magazine, they requested the magazines be no more than 2 years old.  I gave some magazines other than ORG that were train related.  I made sure my name was on them.  Someone took them, but no one ever approached me about the topic.

Amfleet25124 posted:

I used to subscribe to too many magazines of all sorts, especially weeklies.  I would rotate my stock by only keeping the most recent 4 issues regardless of publication frequency.  Around the time that I got back into model railroading (2010-11) is the time I started going online in all of my reading with the exception of the magazines for all of my hobbies.  Those I had to have as hard copy.  I've cut down on my hobbies but still have all the old hobby magazines - even the hobbies that I no longer partake -  in plastic bins in a storage facility, probably because of the "keeping printed documents" philosophy mentioned earlier in this thread.   I have purged many bins of printed materials over the past 3 years, except for the hobby ones.  Have this thing in my head about keeping them for reference material. 

I became a OGR digital subscriber last year and enjoy it.  Storage space is running out and reading this thread is telling me to purge the old hobby magazines... all of them, and I will survive.  Maybe just keep a rolling inventory of the last 12 months of both OGR, CTT, etc., and move on from there.   We'll see.

Not to go off track, but one particular article from Run 77 (Nov-Dec 1982) makes me chuckle.  O Scale is Extinct according to a hobby shop owner 37 years ago, and also according to present-day model railroaders posting every month in various online forms that model trains are dying.  Lets see what they say in 2057 when reading ancient publications from 2020 

 

Kevin, By chance maybe the article was referring to O-SCale-2Rail????

L.I.TRAIN posted:

Amfleet25124 posted:

 

Kevin, By chance maybe the article was referring to O-SCale-2Rail????

 

Apologies to those who knew him, but the author (Carl P. Munck) of said article comes of as very arrogant and goes down the tricky road of telling people how to spend their money (never a good path to travel). No Letters to the Editor section or internet forums back in 1982 to allow for rebuttals. 

There is always confusion because even though both versions are completely different, they continually get lumped together by suppliers. O Gauge, 3 RL AC.  O Scale, 2RL DC.   Because both are 1:48 scale many think they are the same.  Accessories yes.  Motive power, Not the same'... I can't determine which version the author refers too.  I think it is O Gauge, as O scale was still fairly new to many in 83'... And not inexpensive either'... compared to O Gauge'...

 Either way, Kevin, this is all your fault ...........

For me, I pass the RR Magazines around to friends, family......etc......and with permission, I leave them at the dentists' and other doctors' offices. I rarely keep any OGR or CTT, or any others because nearly the same articles with similar "modeling solutions" surface every few (very few) years or even months. Recycle them at curbside!     How many times have you seen, "1953 ( an example) was the BEST year for Lionel" as an headline and article?

I dont throw away any of them.  They all have useful articles that I may refer back to at another time.

After accumulating 20+yrs of OGR and CTT plus a couple issues of Model RR and storing them in metal or plastic magazine holders that I obtained from a university surplus, I made the commitment to go through each past issue (oldest forward) and remove any articles/pics that I still find interesting or useful.  I started placing the selected individual pages in plastic page protectors that are held in a 3-ring binder.  Also started scanning those same selected articles and pics into PDF's to store and use on computer/tablet or the like.  The pdf file name will provide a basic aid to later information searches.

Although the physical "process" may at times seem tedious, there is also a renewed spark when you come across either a good/informative/still relevant article tip, pic or layout.  I still like when CTT and MR put the annual 1 page index of articles/topics in each year end issue; made looking for a topic SO much easier.

Keystone: I just recently started unpacking CCT since day one and about 20 years of OGR and assorted other magazines and learned the same thing rediscovering good and relevant articles on layout building and Post War repair.