Electronic Magazines

I must confess that I am a bit of a pack rat, especially when it comes to magazines. Not all magazines, just the ones I read. I have no problem tossing out a computer periodical that I only skim. However, it is difficult to throw away a single skiing or sailing magazine. Who knows when I may need to go back and reference an article.

A couple of years ago, I was helping my oldest daughter build a trebuchet (sort of like a catapult) for one of her school classes. I remember reading a story in Scientific American about trebuchets and so I went looking for it. I found every other issue except the one on trebuchets. A couple weeks after the project was finished, I was cleaning out my bookshelves and found the missing magazine behind several books.

After 15 years of living in the same house and being able to justify keeping old magazines, my hoarding instinct had let me down. Instead of having a story to justify keeping old magazines, I had my eyes opened to the pointlessness of hanging onto old periodicals. I promptly threw out all of my Scientific American magazines.

Recently I started throwing out all of my old skiing magazines. Actually I give them to my kids who cut out the really cool pictures and then throw the rest away. However I still can't bring myself to throw away any of my sailing magazines. This is somewhat of a frustration to my wife. She has no problem throwing things away and will often chuck stuff that is still being used.

I can actually justify keeping my sailing magazines for two reasons: boat reviews and destination information. As an engineer, I enjoy reading boat reviews. Frequently I will see a used boat for sale and want to get more information. My old magazines provide great reference material.

Ever since I was a teenager I have wanted to sail around the world. I have done trips along the coast of California and helped bring boats back to the mainland from Hawaii. Eventually I would like to go all the way around the planet and visit many of the destinations found in my sailing magazines. That reason alone keeps me hoarding these old periodicals.

Luckily a few of the publishers of sailing magazines have made their issues available in portable document format (PDF) that I can store on my computer. I still like to recieve the paper copy so I can read it anywhere without having to rely on a computer. However when I am done with the issue, I download the PDF, store it on my computer, and recycle the paper copy. Now I just need to figure out what to do with all the space left in my bookshelves.