EDIT: The American Civil War Magazine and Journal Index is now online. It is in the very first stages, but I’ve started on the last issue of Columbiad ever mailed. I hope to work on Columbiad first, and move on from there.
After having recently learned that my web host had expanded my web space by literally 1500% at no extra charge to myself, I’ve been pondering plenty of new projects. One of those that seems overdue to me is an online index of the various Civil War magazines and journals that have come out over the years, from Confederate Veteran to the original Civil War Times to today’s headliner North & South. I’m still looking into copyright issues (and I know more than one company might stand to benefit from selling an index in book form), among other things, but I’ve started creating a web page (as yet unlinked to) that I hope becomes a “one stop shop”, so to speak, where people can go to find an index for whatever Civil War magazine they want to go back and look at.
I realize this is an immense project, the type that can take years to finish. That’s fine. Something is always better than nothing, IMHO, and I intend to start small. I own a complete print run of Columbiad, and since that journal is now defunct, I hope to complete an online index for it within a few weeks. Others will follow when (if?) I can get the go-ahead from the publishers.
I own complete runs of North & South, Blue & Gray, Civil War Times Illustrated, America’s Civil War, and of course Columbiad. Now would also be a good time to solicit volunteers for this project. If you think you would be interested in transcribing these magazines (but especially ones I DO NOT have like Gettysburg, Civil War History (a journal from Kent State University), Civil War Chronicles, both versions of Confederate Veteran, etc.) by all means contact me and we can get started almost immediately. If you go to www.brettschulte.net, you will find my various email addresses scattered around the site. If you leave a comment here, I can also get into contact with you.
The format I hope to use will have one page per magazine issue, similar to the design I used for my My Non-Civil War Book Collection. I hope to use both a java script menu at the top of the page and a more traditional way of navigating the site below that menu. Initially, an entry for one issue will include Volume and Issue number, month and year, the article titles along with page numbers and a one sentence blurb describing the article, and of course any other pertinent information.
If anyone reading this has any other items of concern or ideas to add, by all means let me know. I’m all ears.
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