I'm playing with a software tool that allows us to display a PDF interactively (search, table of contents, thumbnails, jump to a specific page, etc.).

I've taken the OTRR magazine collection and built a new interface around it using this tool.
Note: It's a work in progress...

http://otrr.org/mags2.html

I'd appreciate any feedback.

- Paul

i just looked at Collectors Corner and it looked great to present it in this manner
I really like the list of the series mentioned -- tried a few and it worked well!


--

Cool! Any way to incorporate a link to an "overview page" for each magazine or club newsletter or other pub?

Or to link to a search-result page, such as one for a particular magazine? 

http://otrr.org/mags2.html is still the visible link if I search for Radio Mirror -- compare to ...

https://worldradiohistory.com/Mirror-Page-Range-Guide.htm

I use WorldRadioHistory for printed matter more than the OTRRLibrary, but suspect the OTRR collection is stronger on things like dealer lists and club newsletters...

P.S. Does OTRRlibrary have an official connection with Yumpu, also new to me, which came up in one of my searches?

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/11359455/mar-bren-sound-company-supplement-1-old-time-radio-

 

 

Just did a quick browse for "Big Town," which I've been listening to recently, thanks to the arrival of some older episodes in the mP3 library. Interesting to see what appears to be an old catalog (Mar-Bren) show up, as well as  Radio Mirror links. 

Mar-Bren was beyond my experience since I'm not a "collector", just a 21st century online listener, but I found more about it here: http://mercurie.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-radio-show-revival-of-seventies.html  

Out of time for today, but will be back. 

Thanks for your continued innovations!

Bob in the Blue Ridge

 

Follow up to my last note...

Searching for one of those newsletters led me to Yumpu,

which has an "https://www.yumpu.com/user/otrr.org" account with a footer that says

<<458 Documents |1359703 Views | www.otrr.org >> ...

Very attractive... but I haven't had much time to explore. And don't remember hearing about it as a resource before, but so much goes on under "OTRR" accounts that who can keep track?

Is this something you're connected to, Paul? Or Ryan? Or does it go back to JimB days? Is it kept up to date?

At first, stumbling in on a single document (https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/11359455/mar-bren-sound-company-supplement-1-old-time-radio-) I suspected it was some profiteer just scrounging PDFs online, but could be those uploades were something the group is/was using as a hosting service or another way to "share the wealth."

onward,

Bob

 

 

 

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On Wed, Jul 20, 2022 at 11:21 AM, Bob Stepno wrote:

https://www.yumpu.com/user/otrr.org

I am unaware of any connection to Yumpu. I'll try contacting them to see if they have any information about the user account.

- Paul

Also,
1) We don't have any overview text. If we did, I could add a description.
2) Not sure what you mean about search results. For example, if you search "Jack Benny" would you like a generated url like
"otrr.org/mags/search.html?q=Jack Benny" that would recreate the results of the search.
or "otrr.org/mags/search.html?q=Aircheck" to get the results of selecting Aircheck from the initial pulldown?

- Paul Kornman

Hi Paul... 

1. Overviews...

How many magazines or newsletters (publication titles, that is, not individual issues) are in the collection?  

If some volunteer or volunteers offered to write overviews of the publications during the winter doldrums, would there be a way to incorporate them in the database search? Would users appreciate it? Maybe too big a job without "crowd sourcing", and that would (as usual) leave you stuck in the middle gluing it all together...

But an overview could be something as simple as "SPERDVAC club newsletter, since 1978, sometimes 40 pages or more. 'logs, photos, cartoons and articles on radio'"; or, "RADIO MIRROR, sometimes over 100 pages, slick consumer mag, founded 1933 as a monthly by Syndicate Magazine Corporation, later a Macfadden magazine, eventually RADIO & TV MIRROR" (from the earliest credit box of the publication, and a couple of peeks at later issues.) or with some extra work to look up full dates of publication and add comments on content and quality (interviews, profiles, listings, photos, whatever) based on reading a few issues.  

 

2. Sharing search results

By "search results" your ideas are what I meant. I was thinking of cases where you might want to share some research in progress with someone, like "Hey, Joe, I've seen some interesting things searching old magazines for references to 'The Big Story'; here's a link..." 

Or "Hey, Paul, the following links on the SPERDVAC Recall search results don't work..."

Coincidentally, while coming up with that hypothetical example, I just discovered the Jan 1 1984 and Dec 8 1987 Sperdvac newsletters came up "404" on the old interface. The covers shows up on (https://www.otrr.org/?c=mags) the old mag interface, but "404" when I click them. Checked a few others and they were fine. Didn't have time to crosscheck via  http://otrr.org/mags2.html 

Come to think of it, can we do a plain chronological sort of one publication or a group of publications? 

Might be very handy, for example, to get *all* the November 1938 magazines to see what they said about Mercury Theater, etc.

Thinking out loud here.

3. Yumpu (Yummy.digital Austrian company selling Yumpu page-flip style publication interface) may have offered free hosting for collections of publications and someone who is no longer with us like JimB or Jimbo or whoever had access just "did the Group a favor" experimentally uploading them. Perhaps there was some discussion on the old email list?

https://www.yumpu.com/en/otrr

Result: More than a million views for Yumpu's free-access demo pages. Benefit to OTRR? Another way to read OTRR Times back-issues without cluttering up your hard drive? Example:

 https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/22912981/old-radio-times-old-time-radio-researchers-group 

Thanks again for reminding me to poke around in the old mags!

 

Bob

 

Try this link for info.
https://www.whois.com/whois/yumpu.com

Bill

1) Overviews - If someone (not me) would write them, I could figure out a way to add them them as descriptions.

2a) I suppose I could add a URL with search terms in it.
2b) Both mags and mags2 use the same database source, so if it's a 404 in one, I presume it would be the same in the other.
2c) I like the idea of a date search. I'll add that shortly.

3) I contacted Yumpu. They will contact the otrr user and if they get no response in (I think they said) 7 days, we might be able to transfer the account to me.

Thanks for the feedback,
Paul

Update:

I have added a Date Search feature.
I have added a URL feature - at the bottom of every report is a Direct Link to that report.

As to the Sperdvac missing issues mentioned above, they currently work in this latest release.

I'll be posting a link to this new Research Tool on our Facebook group as well.

Thanks for all the comments,

Paul

Thanks, Paul! Looking forward to checking out these new features! Date search sounds very useful for finding out magazine-writers responses to certain shows, including first and last episodes. 

And as a footnotes-with-hypertext junkie, I love being able to share links to sources when I write about things, so especially looking forward to the URL feature.

Onward!

Bob in the Blue Ridge 

Update: I nudged Yumpu and they told me that they indeed had sent an email to the OTRR account holder and did not hear back.

So, they have deleted the account. We're now free to create a new OTRR account at Yumpu. I'll pass for the time being.
- Paul