

A Little Bit of the Manuals - jcr
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4783

======
jcr
There are two other recent announcements that didn't get much attention on HN.
The first is the announcement [1] of the creation of the new ArchiveCorps [2],
and the second is the announcement [3] of the new digitization wiki [4].

[1]
[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4755](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4755)

[2] [http://www.archivecorps.org/](http://www.archivecorps.org/)

[3]
[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4775](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4775)

[4] [http://digitize.archiveteam.org/](http://digitize.archiveteam.org/)

------
themodelplumber
It was awesome to open one of the manuals and see that it's hosted at
archive.org. I really like using the reader software there, even on mobile[1],
and have been reading a _lot_ of texts recently, everything from the B-25
Mitchell manual to a book from the 1920s, full of essays on science and
religion, to the Gregg shorthand manuals. It's really mind-blowing to even
just browse a single collection like WWII and see what's available. Huge
thanks to the team for everything they've done and continue to do.

[1] Tap the magnifying glass icon, switch the layout to single-page mode, zoom
as much as required to fit the page, and tap the pager arrows to switch pages.
Zoom is preserved across page turns. Works especially well on higher-DPI
screens.

------
userbinator
_Will it be loved by a tiny few and ignored by the world?_

I think that's the most likely outcome. There are always millions of books
around the world residing in libraries, which are unused for long periods of
time. Likewise, these manuals will just become another collection in the
archive for someone to (hopefully) eventually find. In fact I'd say that's the
purpose of an archive - not to provide the most popular content, but to
collect as much information as possible to preserve for those seeking it.

------
acqq
Allow me to claim that to the electrical engineer writing this, the
"Instruction Manual For The UHF Q Meter Type 280-A" linked there is really
beautiful.

(It even has a bibliography!)

