I started tech writing right around the time print was dying. My first job involved writing software documentation as a manual and as WinHelp, and it all went electronic after that. I also briefly wrote for print books about Linux and Emacs. So I have a box with versions of those manuals, and that box has bounced across the country with me, and is currently sitting in a storage space I never visit. But I always think about that chunk of print in storage, and what the end game is there. As I get new pieces of electronic junk in my life, I try to save the PDF versions of the manuals and get rid of the paper, but there’s a certain something about the print versions, too.

Anyway – Jason Scott of the Textfiles web site recently ran into a seller of manuals who was going out of business and was going to junk an insanely large archive of print books. It’s an impressive collection of old print books going back to the 30s, apparently old radio equipment or parts manuals and whatnot. The owner gave him carte blanche to grab whatever he wanted, and he’s currently stuffing everything he can into a storage space for later dissemination.

Check out the photos of the effort – this is some real print manual pornography, if that’s your sort of thing: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683

There’s also a paypal to help him cover the costs of storage and shipping and whatnot, if you want to chip in a few bucks for this massive effort to save some classic dead trees.