Should we have an on-line index to Coin World and Numismatic News ?

RogerB

Several informative posts, particularly by Denga, reference recent articles published in Numismatic News and Coin World. It would have been helpful if members knew about these articles before making their own posts. The Washington Indian medals by Trumbull especially come to mind.

Could Numismatic News and Coin World be induced to publish a comprehensive on-line index for collectors to search?

ricko

I believe that would be a valuable asset.... Cheers, RickO

BStrauss3

Half your wish is granted. The NNP now has an index of Coin World. Not full text, it links to the ANS library for fee-based copies.

Tibor

Sounds like a great idea. Maybe NNP
could make this happen.

RogerB

Suggest it to member Coinosaurus.

Zoins

Electronic, online versions are great for magazines and books. If they did it on the Kindle, I bet they could make money too.

Coinosaurus

Thinking out loud - there are 3,000 issues of Coin World, to index the articles and letters in each issue (title, author, date, subject, keywords) would take on the order of an hour per issue. So, 3,000 hours of labor, at $10/hour that's $30,000. It would certainly be a nice thing to have, but hard to justify with a search-only version already on line.

RogerB

CW and NN should already have these data. They have to be able to find back-issue articles so they don't publish the same things over and over.

Aegis3

I believe the ANS library has article titles/subjects/authors searchable, though I'm not sure if they have a tabulated index.

BStrauss3

@Coinosaurus said:
Thinking out loud - there are 3,000 issues of Coin World, to index the articles and letters in each issue (title, author, date, subject, keywords) would take on the order of an hour per issue. So, 3,000 hours of labor, at $10/hour that's $30,000. It would certainly be a nice thing to have, but hard to justify with a search-only version already on line.

I'm pretty sure they actually did scan it. if you do a search you'll find the words are presented in context. But what they don't have is permission from the copyright owner to share it.

BStrauss3

Oh and the eSylum article talked about shipping the magazines (to be scanned)

BStrauss3

@RogerB said:
CW and NN should already have these data. They have to be able to find back-issue articles so they don't publish the same things over and over.

I doubt it. Back when they started it would have been a physical card catalog and three or more cards per article per issue... would have been a tremendous effort. By the time they could have digitized it, it would have been 100s of thousands or more and a huge project with little payback.

Coinosaurus

I asked Paul Gilkes at CW about this, as I recall he indicated they have some level of access to an index, but the format varies over the years, and it's not all electronic.

RogerB

@BStrauss3 said:

@RogerB said:
CW and NN should already have these data. They have to be able to find back-issue articles so they don't publish the same things over and over.

I doubt it. Back when they started it would have been a physical card catalog and three or more cards per article per issue... would have been a tremendous effort. By the time they could have digitized it, it would have been 100s of thousands or more and a huge project with little payback.

This is analugous to many libraries and magazines. However, most used typed index cards and the first digitization for Life Magazine and others was to scan and OCR the cards. same for libraries. This cut the work load considerably and became the basis for a fuller digital index.