Early BCS Journals

The journals produced by the BCS in it's early years (1991-1994) are a wonderful source of technical information. Unfortunately, most of these are no longer available. I have a fairly good collection although am missing those from 1991 and 1995. Can anybody provide a list of the contents of these two issues?

I wondered if members would be interested in having on-line access to some of the best of the articles that appeared during those times. That is of course dependent on whether Steve would be willing to do it.

I would be interested to hear your comments.

Hi Paul,

One waits a year for the journal, reads it from cover to cover in a few days and the wait starts again! One solution is to go back to the old journals and re-read some of the articles. It's always interesting to rediscover what you have forgotten.

You were obviously way ahead of me Steve regarding your thoughts for making these back issues more readily available. There is so much information though that I think it needs to be handled in several of the ways that you mention.

Firstly, it would be nice to have all the issues available on CD but perhaps these need to be broken up into single year issues or blocks of, say, 5 years. They could then be put on sale (at a not too low price) to BCS members.

There is a danger though of that this could become a kind of archive which would not be accessed by many people and I think it needs to be made available in a more digestable form. My preference would be to also pick out the Classics and post them on the web site. By Classics I mean articles that are outstanding or contain information that is not readily available elsewhere (see * below for my selections). These could be placed in a section on the web site entitled Classic Reference Works.

The easiest way would be to have these as pdf documents. Personally, I don't like reading articles on my computer screen and don't see a real need to have them in HTML format. An exception would be the more recent ones which are available in electronic format. In any case, you should not have to take the job of converting into HTML format all alone.

Coming back to the question of availability of the early issues; there were 250 members in 1991 and 655 in 1995 so there should be some spare copies of these 'rarities' somewhere. I bet John Howells, the editor at that time, has some and for that matter, other members of the then Committee.

Did I gather that you have on loan the 1991 and 1995 issues? If so, can you show us the contents page? I shudder at the thought of you pulling apart a 1991 journal but it would be for a good cause. Should extra copies appear, perhaps they could be auctioned, with proceeds going to th BCS.

*My selections
When I first saw these articles my initial reaction was 'Oh this one is just for the fanatics' - now I've become one! Most of them come from Symposia or Study Days that were held by the society.

1992
- Classification of the genus. W. Snoeijer
- Seedling Morphology. F. Essig (sounds dry but there's a wealth of related info)

1993
- Alpine (Rockery) Clematis. J. Elliot

1994
- Classification of types for selection. M. Beskaravainaya
- Vulnerability to wilt in large flowered Clematis. J. Howells
- Genetic background of wilting Clematis. J. Howells

There is one more recent one that I just have to add:

1998: Clematis sub genus Viorna. J. Pringle

Thanks Steve.
I must say the website has undergone such a transition since you took over -  it's now looking really great. It already has a lot of things on it which a couple of years ago I thought would never be realised. Those html newsletters look terrific and for them, it's an ideal format but nevertheless, a labour of love for you.

Good to hear that those early journals could be put back together again. I will drop a line to John Howells with the same question and ask if he can help.

WOW!  

Now you've really got my mouth watering. Another article by Pringle, a Phlebantha symposium and NZ Clematis, just to name a few.

Many thanks for this Jack - the wonders of the internet!

Thanks to Jack (who has loaned me his copy), members can now view the articles from the rare 1991 journal.