WT library idea

by coffee_black 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

TD

Do you know if what is on the CDs are the originals or the edited versions or hopefully both? And yes I saw them on sale at Freeminds.
The CD's available from Freeminds are Acrobat distilled scans of the originals.
Between the years 1879 and 1919 a fair amount of articles were duplicated in Zion's Watch Tower. This was eliminated in the Reprints (And CD's based on the reprints, by extension) So the PDF's of these issues are original in that they are scans of the Reprints, but edited inasmuch as the Reprints themselves were edited.
Not sure if this is helpful or not.
Invetigator74

Yes TD is right. I have the Original WT Reprints (1919) and the Cds as well. Like to use the cds because the reprints are old and you have to be careful handling them. The Cds also include the original WTs from July 1 to Dec.15,1919 issue which you don't find in the original WT Reprints (they end on the June 15th issue). I sold off all my yearbooks (1927 - 2005) , but there are now yearbook cds from 1927 to 1942 and 1943 to 1959. Have a collection of full year WT sets from 1930 to date and Golden Age/Consolation/Awake sets from 1936 to date with some earlier single issues from the 1920's and early 30's.Have also a full set of booklets and books from the 1920's to date .Again alot of these publications can be found on cds,but if I can be of any help, no problem.
Lady Lee
I think we are talking about 3 very different CDs here.
The WTS published CD, the CDs made by http://www.researchapplications.org and the Bookshelf CD
The CDs that Nathan Natas is referring to is available for free. Nathan stated:
Watchtower Book Shelf CD-ROM
Fully searchable PDF archive
The Watchtower Bookshelf CD contains over 6,000 pages from books the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society — every book from 1942 to 1959. These works are not on the Watchtower Society’s official "Watchtower Library" CD.
No more will you have to search for hard-to-find titles and pay a small fortune for them, only to find that some 4 year old colored the pages with his crayons!
Fully searchable with pictures
First, we carefully scanned each of these books. We then used state-of-the-art Optical Character Recognition so that the text could be extracted. Finally, we combined the high-quality scan and the OCR together into Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). The result: the most accurate electronic reproduction, with all of the color of the original books complete with pictures, and with a fully searchable text.
This is better than the official Watchtower Library. How? Firstly, the Watchtower Library CD-ROM does not contain any of these books from the 1940s and 1950s. Secondly, the Watchtower Library is text-only (i.e. no pictures). Thirdly, the search engine on the Watchtower Library is somewhat crippled, and seems to not find many interesting things. But the search abilities on our Watchtower Book Shelf CD-ROM is practically unstoppable: just open the book with Adobe Acrobat and enter your keyword into the search engine. If that word exists anywhere it will be found. At last, decent keyword searching for Watchtower literature!
Why start with 1942?
"Why not begin with the releases of 1940, and include the entire decade?" The reason that the decision was made to start with 1942 was primarily that 1942 was the beginning of the "Knorr/Franz" era of Watchtower leadership.
A secondary reason was to avoid duplication of effort: earlier Watchtower publications are available on the "Rutherford's Rainbow" CD and other CDs published commercially by Research Applications International, P.O. Box 710022, San Diego, CA 92171. Most of Charles Taze Russell's works are also available from the Bible Students.
This CD is in no way related to either Research Applications International or the Bible Students.
The purpose of the Book Shelf CD-ROM
This distribution is being made for purposes of research, scholarship, teaching, news reporting, commentary or criticism.
*NOT* the Watchtower Library CD-ROM
Please note that this is not the official Watchtower Library CD-ROM which is covered by copyright and available only directly from the Watchtower Society.
Volume One: Books of the 1940's
- THE NEW WORLD, 1942
- THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE, 1943
- THE KINGDOM IS AT HAND, 1944
- THEOCRATIC AID TO KINGDOM PUBLISHERS, 1945
- EQUIPPED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK, 1946
- LET GOD BE TRUE, 1946
Volume Two: Books of the 1950's
- THIS MEANS EVERLASTING LIFE, 1950
- WHAT HAS RELIGION DONE FOR MANKIND?, 1951
- LET GOD BE TRUE, 1952
- MAKE SURE OF ALL THINGS, 1953
- NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH, 1953
- YOU MAY SURVIVE ARMAGEDDON INTO GOD'S NEW WORLD, 1955
- QUALIFIED TO BE MINISTERS, 1955
- MAKE SURE OF ALL THINGS, REVISED, 1957
- YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH, 1958
- FROM PARADISE LOST TO PARADISE REGAINED, 1958
- JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES & THE DIVINE PURPOSE, 1959
If anyone is interested in this CD please PM me. I can make arrangements for some people to get a copy.
Lee UADNA Special Agent
johnny cip

what i would like to see. is a cd of the complete set of GOLDEN AGE mag/s this mag was the most wacky stuff the wt ever printed. john
IronClaw

As far as the WT's own CDrom, I wouldn't trust it as far as I can throw it. They have been shown to change things written in their magazines vs. what came out in the bound volumes. Now with modern technology you can bet your house that they are very careful of what they put on their CD's. It wouldn't surprise me if they change from CD to CD as they produce newer versions.
I think its a great idea Coffee, only if we could get original scans. I have most original books from the 60's to present. I also have bound volumes from 1970. Have quite a bit of the booklets and brochures.
If you need anything in particular, I can see if I have it. The Claw.
IP_SEC

I know this isnt exactly what you guys are talking about but here is an awesome resource for early BSA watchtowers, studies in the scripts, and other pre Rutherford literature.
http://www.ctrussell.us/

WT library idea

TD

Invetigator74

Lady Lee

johnny cip

IronClaw

IP_SEC

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