I was searching the interwebs for a source of archives of past CL issues and it’s precursors, CR and CL&R. I happened upon this link, http://www.uscfsales.com/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&q=chess+life+and+review+dvd, which has all the issues since the inception to 1975, so I bought it. My question/request is if anyone of influence could persuade the USCF to produce a DVD archive of CL issues from 1976 to, say, 2005 or so. My collection has big gaps (83-88, 91-98, and 2001-2008) that I would like to fill. The USCF has virtually nothing for sale from the last century, and what they have of the 21st century is spotty. Also, I would prefer not to buy the magazines piecemeal, and the CL annuals are just too pricey, even if they have the years(s) you’re looking for.
So, I think a CL archive covering 1976 thru, say, 2003 would be profitable for the USCF, and wouldn’t disrupt their sales of the 21st century stuff they sell.
This has been on my long-term to-do list for some time now and I do hope to take action on this soon. However, the most likely form such an archive would take would not be DVD, as those are rapidly becoming obsolete (personally, I don’t even have a DVD player on my laptop anymore nor is there one connected to my TV), but as a downloadable archive.
At this point I cannot be more specific about our plans, but it is good to know that there is interest in this project.
I remember being at many tournaments where Tim Tobiason would be scanning pages of Chess Life one by one while he was running the bookstore. I know the DVD you have was very labor intensive and not put together by US Chess at all, but I’ll defer to Mr. Lucas.
Thank you Mr. Lucas! I wish you all the good fortune in getting the USCF to approve your project. It doesn’t matter to me if the format is DVD, as long as the format is searchable, such as PDF.
Good Luck!
Scott