Everyone
The October issue has gone to the printers, coming to you all in a few weeks - look out for the first show reports since forever!
Stuart
Volume 49 no 1 has arrived here in the North West and very good it is too.
There are some very good and interesting articles but the highlight for me was the return of normality with a real show in the form of the Pewsey show report and accompanying photos by Mick T.
All's right with the world again! Many thanks.
Frank
It has also arrived here in West London. :)
I've only had a chance to quickly flip through the pages, but it looks another good and interesting issue.
Quote from: Frank on September 23, 2021, 20:47
Volume 49 no 1 has arrived here in the North West and very good it is too.
There are some very good and interesting articles but the highlight for me was the return of normality with a real show in the form of the Pewsey show report and accompanying photos by Mick T.
All's right with the world again! Many thanks.
Frank
That's very kind of you Frank. Thanks very much for the compliment, but there were also 2 other show reports (one from a show that took place before the one I went to as well!) that deserve credit and also hail the return to at least some normality!
Mick
Looking forward for Volume 49 Issue 1 to reach Ukraine!
Quote from: MickT on September 23, 2021, 23:29
That's very kind of you Frank. Thanks very much for the compliment, but there were also 2 other show reports (one from a show that took place before the one I went to as well!) that deserve credit and also hail the return to at least some normality!
Mick
Very true Mick, it's good to see shows starting up again and several interesting reports showing excellent layouts. The whole issue is full of interesting articles, thanks to all who contributed.
Frank
In this month's News I asked the question about volume and issue numbers. Why do have them and are they still relevant? Why does the volume change in October?
I presumed it was all to do with binding 12 issues together but does anyone actually do that anymore?
Stuart
I think it stems from a time when people did things 'properly' and is a librarian thing. ;)
Periodicals are nearly always published in annual volumes as far as I can tell and there is no reason why the publishing year has to start in January. The tax year doesn't and neither do many others. I don't have early enough issues but volumes started in September earlier on. The original volume numbering may have been when it was first published or when it became monthly. It may even have tied in with the AGM: new committee, new volume. A number of periodicals start say as quarterlies with four issues per volume or other period and become monthlies.
I do know that in more than one year there were problems and 11 issues were published so an issue covered two months.
Along similar lines - when does the modelling year start? I'd go for September being after the supposed summer lull in modelling.
The 009 Society was formed in August 1973, following a small ad. in Railway Modeller. The first edition of what was to become 009 News ( a single sheet of A4 , albeit printed on both sides ) was issued in September 1973 as Newsletter no.1 & this numbering system continued until August 1974 ( Newsletter no.12 ) . September 1974 introduced changes --- the title now became 009 News, with a subscript of " Newsletter of the 009 Society" & a new numbering system was introduced, with the Sept.74 edition becoming Vol.2 no.1.
The subscript " Newsletter etc " was dropped from the tiitle from March 1980 ( Vol 7 no.7 ) but still appeared at the bottom of the cover page & later it reappeared under the title 009 News at the top of the page. From Vol 18 no.10, 009 News ceased to be a mere newsletter but was now proclaimed a "Magazine".
The dating system of each Volume commencing with the September issue as number 1 continued until Vol 37 no.10 June 2010. Note from September 1973 until June 2010 the numbering system also denoted the month in which you received it ( usually but not always during the 3rd week of the month ) so for example, the issue dated March 2008 would have been received by members in the 3rd week of March 2008.
However, most commercial magazines carry an issue date of the following month not the current month, and in 2010 a decision was made to adopt this system. So to move to the new dating system there were 2 transitional issues, Vol 37 no.11 dated July-August 2010, & Vol 37 no.12 dated August -September 2010, with the new system coming in to force with Vol 38 no,1 dated October 2010 but issued at the end of September 2010.
So that's a very brief history of the dating system, and of course it's very much still relevant, as it enables items to be found quickly and easily with an accurate dating system.
We could of course add a total issue number ( note that not all the early volumes had 12 issues --- but that's another story ), and so the forthcoming issues November 2021 & December 2021 will be issues 568 & 569 respectively.
Garry Whiting --- 009 Society Archivist
Thanks for the 'chapter & verse' Garry. I hadn't remembered that we went monthly from the start - possibly because my early 009 News (photocopies, not originals) are several issues stapled together and I'd misinterpreted/ misremembered this was due to a quarterly / bimonthly publication.
I also recalled the change of issue date, but not when it happened.
Personally I quite like the "Volume x issue y page z" format for referencing articles, but then with my academic bent it might explain why I find it quicker to search using that rather than trying to read the month and year from the masthead of the full set of issues I have in magazine holders...
I've never understood the system used by commercial magazines, dating them to the following rather than the current month.
I for one would be very happy to see a new volume start in January (?2023), with the first (January) issue (No.1) appearing at the beginning of the month (or just a couple of days beforehand). (But maybe I'm just too boring and logical...)
David.
This is fascinating. The idea that it changes in September simply because that's when they started is what I expected but does demonstrate how random these things are.
Whilst I am not looking to change anything, I am with David that I have always thought it weird that magazines come out with next month's date on it. Today, as editor, it is September with the October issue having arrived, the November issue just finished ready for the printers and the December issue getting started.
I never think by volume and issue number, only by date and month. The former makes no sense to me but then I don't keep old paper copies any more and I get the pdfs and they are already labelled by year and month.
I do recall binding some Railway Modellers but that was over 40 years ago...
Stuart
Yes, many thanks Garry and I'm with you too Julien regarding Vol. Issue page referencing.
I take it the Society never considered applying for an ISSN? It is supposedly a legal requirement to lodge copies of publications with national deposit libraries. I know many, probably most groups and societies don't bother, but then most are probably not registered as companies either.
Quote from: JulienW on September 30, 2021, 09:22
Thanks for the 'chapter & verse' Garry. I hadn't remembered that we went monthly from the start - possibly because my early 009 News (photocopies, not originals) are several issues stapled together and I'd misinterpreted/ misremembered this was due to a quarterly / bimonthly publication.
I also recalled the change of issue date, but not when it happened.
Personally I quite like the "Volume x issue y page z" format for referencing articles, but then with my academic bent it might explain why I find it quicker to search using that rather than trying to read the month and year from the masthead of the full set of issues I have in magazine holders...
I keep every edition of 009 News from the first newsletter in Sept 1973 in paper form.
(I even have a pre-September 1973 leaflet that was handed out at exhibitions in August that year and the list of the first few members, including their addresses that was sent out to every new member in 1973.)
Up to 2020 these all fitted easily in one draw in a filing cabinet.
The first few years are in one hanging folder, then as it got more pages they are two years in one hanging folder, more recently it has been one year per hanging folder.
I use the year, month and page number if necessary as a reference.
I have no full index, but can usualy still find things as I have a general idea of where things are.
Quote from: B.Meldon on September 30, 2021, 12:05
I keep every edition of 009 News from the first newsletter in Sept 1973 in paper form.
Same here Brian. I store mine in the A4 envelopes that they arrive in and can happily fit one volume (ie 12 issues since the date that Garry quoted) into one envelope. Thus there are currently 49 envelopes each one marked with the Volume number and the dates that are covered - eg Volume 48 October 2020 to September 2021. I don't have a problem storing them as some seem to do, as the total height of all the volumes in the envelopes if stored on top of each other is currently 18½ inches (youngsters who were never taught proper imperial measurements can work that out for themselves in Napoleon's millithingies), which is only about the same as a pile of a couple of years worth of Railway Modellers if you keep all of them including the adverts.
In response to the other points that have been raised:
1. I was Secretary about the time that the issue date was brought forward to the preceding month so can remember how it came about. The Editor at the time, Mark Howe, had been receiving a lot of feedback from members effectively complaining that the NEWS was always late as by the time it arrived quite often the commercial magazines had already issued the following month's editions, so after consultations with the top table, it was decided to bring 009 News into line with the commercial mags and get it to the printers at the start of the preceding month, and it would be ready to go to the packing team for distribution to the membership by around the 3rd week of that month, for example: The September issue would have an editorial deadline of the end of July, would be despatched to the printer in the first week of August and arrive in UK member's letterboxes around the 20th approx of August. This is still a couple of weeks after the commercial mags publish (eg RM is published on the 2nd Thursday of the preceding month) but was deemed successful from the feedback that Mark subsequently received in that (a) it meshed in well with the date of the issue compared to the commercial mags and (2) it still allowed currency for the PRIMARY role of the mag in that it is the Society Newsletter, particularly relevant for the editorial announcements, event notices and publicity and the branchlines group reports (whatever you think about these, we don't need another debate about that at the moment!). With the old "publish in the 2nd half of the current month" system, it was very common for notices about events to appear in front of the members AFTER the event had taken place for example.
Additionally, don't forget that we have a number of overseas members who receive their copies after the UK ones, so with the previous system of issueing the current month's mag nearly at the end of the stated month, it was often 2 or 3 weeks into the NEXT month before some members received their copies.
2. As to the volume being changed to match the start of year. What's the point, there's nothing wrong with it as it is and it has been stable for many years, so why change it? It's not broke, so don't fix it. With the 50th anniversary of the Society coming upon us very soon, then even if there are cosmetic or convenience reasons to change then I don't think this is the right time to consider it, as it would simply cause confusion in relating the volume to the anniversary in my opinion. I remember heated debate some years ago about how many issues there have actually been which took a long time to get resolved until Garry took up the mantle and produced the 500th issue a few years ago (an excellent issue as well by the way) which put the lid on that one as we can all now keep count on which issue number we are on, if we really want to!
Meanwhile, I'm working hard to try to get my roving reporter blogs caught up with after 4 years of neglect, so time to get back on my head and get on with it. Happy argueing everyone!
Mick
Quote from: MickT on September 30, 2021, 16:40...complaining that the NEWS was always late as by the time it arrived quite often the commercial magazines had already issued the following month's editions Mick
I'm not sure what the issue date of the
009 News had to do with other magazines (or even the price of fish), but presumably it was important to some members. :)
David.
Quote from: clayliner on October 01, 2021, 09:30
I'm not sure what the issue date of the 009 News had to do with other magazines (or even the price of fish), but presumably it was important to some members. :)
David.
I never saw the correspondence or "record of phone calls" etc that Mark Howe received but it was certainly enough to cause him concern, which was reflected by the committee endorsement of his proposal to move the publishing date back to the month preceding the cover issue date. As far as I understand it, receiving your monthly stash of mags from WH Smith with eg "November" on the cover and 2 or 3 weeks later receiving your 009 News in the post with eg "October" on the cover caused many people to believe that the News was running a month late all the time.
This was excacerbated by often receiving the News with notices and branchlines reports featuring publicity for events and meetings etc which had already taken place by the time the News was released, and the longer delay for an issue to reach overseas members, who also have to be catered for. Simple comparator:
Old publishing date: September issue of the News published around 25 September, posted to members and copy received by member in Slovenia (we do or did have one!) 3 weeks later (not unusual) around 18 October, but the issue is the September one, therefore a month out of date.
Revised publishing date: Same dates, but this time it is the October issue that is published late - 25 September, same as above example, it is normally a week or so before that as you know; posted to members and received by Bostan in Slovenia around 18 October - it is stated as the October issue so it is in date and everybody is happy.
Next Question, wake up at the back Bryant...............
Mick
I do try and purge items from Branchlines that I know will be in the past by the time members receive them. The fact that the date is somewhere areound the third to fourth week of the month means I have to be flexible on those items.
This is an interesting topic, in an academic kind of way. ;D ;D ;D
Stuart
I do wonder what the reaction would have been back in the 1980's when for various reasons the news went through a rather erratic time regarding publication dates etc. How things have moved on since then.
Quote from: B.Meldon on October 01, 2021, 12:34
I do wonder what the reaction would have been back in the 1980's when for various reasons the news went through a rather erratic time regarding publication dates etc. How things have moved on since then.
Brian, probably the same today with MRJ, you just never really know when it is going to turn up!
Stuart
Personally I don't mind what date is on the magazine, it's a great read at any time. I recall Model Boats magazine went through a stage (only a few months) of not putting the month, only the volume and issue numbers. Now that did throw everybody out.
Quote from: Ian Jopson on October 02, 2021, 10:10
I recall Model Boats magazine went through a stage (only a few months) of not putting the month, only the volume and issue numbers. Now that did throw everybody out.
I hope they had life jackets on
coat, hat, taxi!............. ::)
Being a more recent member I am extremely grateful for the .pdf back issues, indeed currently being in temporary accommodation most of my gear is in storage so this online archive is proving a great source of entertainment.
I only keep the paper copies until I can download the pdf version, which is stored by year, but I also use "print as pdf" to extract articles into my my own archive which is organised as "Locos", "Layouts", "Scenery", "Painting" etc.. This also includes downloads from other online mags so its great to go back to these after a year and fins all manner of articles that I had forgotten :-)