IJOCA goes electric is complete; all issues are available now digitally

 

Less than 1/2 the issues are visible on this bookshelf...

IJOCA's project to digitize all of the back issues has finally been successfully finished. This was a massive task given that the Journal has a functional volunteer staff of four (EIC John Lent, Ass't Eds Xu Ying, Jae-Woong Kwon & Mike Rhode), along with Denise, Prof. Lent's invaluable administrative assistant. 

Individual digital issues can be ordered for $20 each (a savings of $5 from the print cost) or a complete set of 47 issues at the bargain price of $250. All orders should be sent to jlent@temple.edu. Dropbox links to the issues will be sent upon payment. If you're a contributor to that issue, and need a copy of it, send a note to us asking for it and there is no charge. Future print subscriptions will include a complimentary digital edition, usually in advance of the print edition.

Payable by:

- Cash (U.S. Dollars Only)

- Personal check drawn on a U.S. bank

- Money Order or Cashier’s check drawn on a U.S. bank

- PayPal (by using jlent@temple.edu):

- Add US $6.00 per payment under US $125.00

- Add US $12.00 per payment over US $125.00

In these increasingly-digital days, some assume that everything is born and exists digitally. Not so! IJOCA has always been laid out on a computer, but many of the files from the first 20 years were lost or corrupted.

For some issues, we had modern PDFs from the printer, or Prof. Kwon had the InDesign files he used for layouts. For other issues, we had partial obsolete PageMaker files that digital editor Simon Wigzell was able to convert into PDFs.

For most issues, we had to scan them. If it was an issue in short supply, like the first 5 years, you'll see scanning artifacts of black lines where the issue was bound.

If we had plenty of them?  We tore one apart, trimmed the edges, ran it through a scanner, ran optical character recognition on it, made links live, linked the table of contents to the article, and then it was ready to go. Here's some photos of that process:

The  final rare out-of-print 10th anniversary sacrificial issue, donated by Art Rhode, Mike's father.*

 

 

 

Begin by tearing out the pages, about 20 at a time...

 

...which leads to the disassembled volume...

 

...which is then trimmed manually...

 

 

 

 

 

...about 15 pages at a time...

 

...until all the edges are trimmed...

 

...and then it's scanned, ending with a lot of boring computer processing.

 *The lesson here is to buy multiple subscriptions for your family members, JUST IN CASE.