The Issue With Back Issues

[Mark J]

What do you folks do with back issues of magazines you subscribe to.  I've renewed my FWW and American Woodturner subscriptions enough times to have a significant pile of these.  If it's a good article, or more likely a good tip, I'll photocopy the relevant pages, but even these are starting to pile up and it's hard to know what I even have.  

[Tom King]

We converted one of our bedrooms into a library, years ago, but it's been full for a good decade.  All my old FWW mags are in there.  I have stacks of books with nowhere to put them.

[Woodworking_Hobby]

I try to do two things but the key word is try as I never seem to have enough time. 
1. I write down the tips in a journal and log them in different sections based on the tips so hopefully I can find it in the future. 
2. I have scanned some of them with just the notes all on my phone and file them away in folders in my files app on my phone. 

[Chet]

I enjoy reading an actual magazine, I doing enjoy ready articles on line so I do subscribe FWW but once I read it I throw it in the recycle bin because if I need to, I can access all the articles on their online service.

[Dave H]

I finally after many years of saving woodworking mags, I took a mountain of magazines to the recycling drop off, they had lived in the shop for years dusty, and dogeared I needed the wasted space. I think it was a good move for me I haven't had a subscription to a woodworking magazine in several years.

[sjeff70]

Separating them into categories is essential if you don't trust a search feature. Some hobbies evolve with age and experience so keeping all issues in some format is probably wise as they will need to be revisited. 

Question is what categories should be used.  

[Robby W]

I realized I have way more magazines I thought I did as I started packing them to move. Looks like I will have 8-10 boxes of them. Each box holds 50-75 mags, so a bunch. I don't have a lot of trouble throwing some of them out, but I can't ring myself to toss my FWW collection. I am only missing five of the first issues. 

[G Ragatz]

A few years ago, I bought a FWW archive on a USB drive when they were running a sale, and recycled all my hard copies that were covered by the archive.  I've been keeping an eye open for a discount on the Wood Magazine archive - if it comes along, I'll recycle those hard copies, too.

Search capability in the electronic archive is not perfect, but helpful (and better than my ability to search the hard copies). I can print articles if I'm going to use them in the shop (laptop doesn't go there) or if I want to make notes on them.

[legenddc]

I used to pull out pages or print things I really wanted and tried to organize them in a binder. Then I never reference them. Did something similar electronically with Evernote or Microsoft OneNote. I do still try to bookmark or save a YouTube video if I think it will be useful but I find myself referencing stuff less and less until I really need something and then I just start from scratch.