From: rnewman@bbn.com (Ron Newman)
Newsgroups: bbn.bboard,ne.general,mit.bboard,rec.mag
Subject: Re: What can I do with these old magazines?
Date: 24 Jul 92 18:40:04 GMT
Organization: Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: spcsun25.bbn.com


Thanks for your response to my offer of old magazines.
Except for the _InfoWorld_s, they are all gone now.  The back
issues of _Granta_ and _Utne Reader_ attracted especially
large interest, as did the _Sierra_ and _Nature Conservancy_
magazines.

Many people gave helpful suggestions.  I didn't end up using
most of them because it was easy to give the magazines away
to people on the Net.   But I thought you'd be interested in
reading them:


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The Sailor's Chapel, down on the waterfront near the World Trade Center, takes
old magazines.  They then give them to sailors who stop into Boston Harbor.  
Gives them something to read on long trips...

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I suggest you donate the magazines to hospitals and or hospices,
someplace where people have time to read in-depth articles.

Alternatively, the Cambridge school system has a multi-cultural
education curriculum. These magazines might provide teachers with
intersting sources, or students with interesting ideas and images.  

Lastly, you could donate them to senior citizen's center. These folks
vote in numbers, and many could use some exposure to more progressive
ideas.

--------------
If the library doesnt want them, consider dropping them off at either
the main door of the Cambridge Public library or the Ride-Read-Return
display at Porter Square. Both are places the library provides for
free reading material and both empty quickly!

--------------
Have you contacted your local public library?  Make it clear that
you're not fobbing off the whole wagonload, just offering them a
chance to fill in holes in their collection or to acquire magazines
they don't usually have.

I also refer you to the seminal JIR article "National Geographic: The
Doomsday Machine", by George H. Kaub, 20:3, pp22-23 (1974).

[JIR == Journal of Irreproducible Results, a satiric journal -- Ron N.]

-----------
Here is a magazine request, recently posted to Whole Earth Catalog readers.
Perhaps some of you have magazines you'd give these folks in Czechoslovakia:

we.170.103: Robert Horvitz (antenna)  Wed 15 Jul 92 20:08

 This evening I visited the office of a Czech magazine named
 VOKNO.  This is a really really really neat publication, sort of
 like Re:Search, or Semiotext(e), with excellent wild bold graphic
 style.  Contents is cultural.  Thumbing thru the current issue,
 there are articles on (I may be translating this first one wrong
 because of all the word-play) "chaotic democracy and menstrual art";
 the music of Skinny Puppy;  sculpture by Mike Kelley;  excerpts
 from "Last Exit to Brooklyn";  an interview with J. G, Ballard;
 an article on hippies in Poland;  Michael Fox on animal rights;
 interview with a "NY shaman" named  Michael Medicine Eagle;
 part 2 of an article on "pornographic fantasy" by Suzan Sontag;
 ...well you get the idea.

 Anyway, the editor, Blumfeld S.M., asked a favor:  they have no hard
 currency and feel out of touch with new and interesting things
 published in the US.  He asked if Whole Earth readers could mail
 him issues of mags and zines you have read, found worth reading,
 but not worth keeping - back issues of good periodicals, in
 other words.  They can't afford to subscribe, and don't even know
 what to subscribe to, so you could help on both scores.  The
 address:

 Blumfeld S.M.
 V O K N O
 Bolzanova 1
 110 00 Praha 1
 Czechoslovakia

 Hmmm, there's no phone or fax listed.  Will have to get that on
 my next visit to the office.

 So if you want to help a struggling and quite remarkable mag,
 here's a way to do it.  Thanks in advance on their behalf.

-------------
Shop them to a library, or a reading room.  

Our local library has a rack where people can bring old magazines in,
and pick up magazines other people have left, but that's more for
single issues, I'd imagine.

Since you have full runs, a library might be interested in taking them
and making them available -- they might obtain their own subscriptions
for those that prove popular.  (Or, if you were going to be in the
area, you could donate your issues after you're through with them.)

Another possibility is some sort of activist organization with their
own library -- SUNY-Binghamton's Off-Campus College has a reading room
where they get all sorts of magazines similar to those you mentioned,
but I know they didn't get several of those, and would probably love
to have them -- chances are there's someplace similar near you.

Finally, there's always a doctor's or dentist's office.  Of course,
they might object to having something interesting available.  ;-)  

Good luck!

------------------
In our recent move I gave back issues of natural
history magazines to our neighborhood library. They
were delighted to have them. Try the branch of the
Cambridge library on Concord Ave. They may even be
interested in Granta, UTNE reader etc.

-----------------
You might try calling the Masonic Retirement Home in Charlton, Mass.
They accept donations of magazines for their residents, retired Masons
and widows of Masons.  Some things on your list -- InfoWorld, for
instance -- would probably not be of interest, but I would think that
Granta or Mother Jones would be candidates for contribution.

I don't have a phone number for the Home, but you can reach the Grand
Lodge of Massachusetts at 617-426-6040.

---------------
...if you donate them (and any others) to an educational
institution, you might actually be able to get some money for them
by taking a tax deduction.  I gave about $3000 worth of JASA to
Emerson college some years back, when my collection began to threaten
to fall off my office walls on top of me.  You have to estimate
their worth, which you can do by calling a journal trader -- someone
who buys and sells (usually academic) journals.   But I don't know
if they would know about popular magazines...

----------------
I'd suggest that, anything no one claims, you could donate to a local
school library-- they'd be more likely to want soem of the more 
obscure stuff than a public library.

----------------

Ron Newman		rnewman@bbn.com