What's In Your Computer Reference Library?

The Internet already has countless digital archives and library's containing millions of books in over 40 languages. There is a continuing collaborative effort being undertaken to digitize entire collections of books from museums, public libraries, state archives, university library,s, government institutions, and so on. A Lot of this material can be downloaded or viewed for free. With the advent of devices like the Kindle, net-books, smart phones and other portable devices you can now carry a virtual library in your pocket.. Sites like Google Books allows you to search for and read countless books on subjects including Numismatics. I just found one particular online archive that had 4 pages of numismatic books, catalogs and literature from the 19th century up to Victorian times. One I found interesting was written by the U.S. Mint in 1914, the other was a history of English Coins and Tokens written in 1886. All available for free download to whatever device you want.

The computer is off and you need to look something up... okay yeah it's kind of silly to log in. Especially IF you already have the book sitting on your shelf... But how about when you are already online, and your on the coin forum, or ebay, or looking through that coin trading list, for sale list, or want list that someone just emailed you. And you need to check, or look something up. Wouldn't it be just as silly to get up and run over to your library, lug out that NY telephone directory sized catalog, fumble through pages to find what you need? Or just stay seated, click open your My Documents folder, open the same book right onto your screen and scroll down to the information you need... Maybe even copy and paste the info directly into your email, spreadsheet, forum post or whatever...

I once watched a guy at a coin show fumbling with a massive SC of WC on his lap while sitting at a table looking at coins. It made me appreciate technology and its ability to store, transport and access volumes of information on a portable device as small as a cell phone.

This thread was not meant to be about replacing your carbon and papyrus books with plastic CDs and DVDs. It's about the convenience of having those same references and more available in digital form.




Exactly my point, we spend a lot of time discussing, researching, searching for and buying coins online. I particularly like the convenience of having my Standard Catalog of World Coins open on my screen when I'm making inventory lists of my coins on my computer. I have the mintage's, prices, catalog number ALL right in front of me. No constant switching back and forth from the screen to a book.

Think about this; We browse, communicate and get updates from this forum digitally... We constantly see references to web sites like Numismedia, NGC and PCGS price guides, the Lincoln Cent resource, CONECA and countless other online numismatic references that we all turn to everyday... Why?... Is this information not available in hard book form?..........

So that is why I am so surprised that especially in an online forum the idea of keeping or reading a book on your computer seems so alien...

Forgot to mention, ALL my References are pertaining to Banknotes!


Cheers

The online catalog of Germany's Berlin State Museum Munzkabinet is a great resource for 500,000 + museum quality coins from ancients and forward. It is worth having a look at. Lots of great information there. You can start at the section "keywords" for a more precise location on what you would like to find.

https://ikmk.smb.museum/home?lang=en

I've got a 2TB drive dedicated to my Numismatic files.

I have:
99.8% Of all of David Bowers affiliated auction catalogs
98% of Stacks Catalogs
90% of Heritage catalogs
95% Kagins catalogs
90% Legend catalogs
90% Goldberg Catalogs
25% Kosoff Galleries
about 2500 more various catalogs, many of these have PRLs (which make them especially useful in researching historical pricing).

Over 500 complete books

1000's of various newsletters

Hundred's of pages I've scanned myself

Every episode of most coin podcasts saved (CoinShow, CoinWeek, NBS, CoinWorld, ANA, Etc.)

Complete Pennywise, NBS, Money Tree, Gobrecht Journal, Longacre's Ledger, John Reich Journal, Rare Coin Reviews, Colonial Newsletters, to name but a few.

Almost complete sets of: Coneca, ErrorScope, Error-Variety News, NLG Newsletter, C4 newsletters, and many more.

Tens of thousands of images I've shot and many others that I did not shot, some historical scans of plates from old auction catlogs.

Many videos of conference talks and other interesting presentations.

My databases I've created of my Library and my Two Cent die pair project.

Most of my old websites when I was running a coin company online, and copies of the newsletters I've wrote and edited over the years for various coin clubs around the country where I've lived, and been a member of.

Currently my drive is sitting at around 275 GB used - so I still have a lot of room left.

It was great to have when we lost power in Texas this past winter, I still had a bunch of batteries from my portable astronomy setup, so I could use my laptop and drive without need to access the Internet. Though truthfully I spent more time just catching up on reading paper books. Mostly besides the ability to access it without Internet I like having everything in one place easily and mostly very searchable.