Newsletter Conversion Notes, circa 2020

In 2005 we decided to move all archived issues of our newsletter to digital form. The motivation behind this was to eliminate the bulky hardcopy archive that had been accumulating over the years, safeguard this informational legacy in a form less susceptible to loss, and allow members easier access for research or other purposes.

We began the lengthy conversion process in 2006. Some of the more recent issues were already in digital form, older issues required scanning. The decision was made to approach this task in two phases. In Phase 1, we scanned the older newsletters, one page at a time, to an uncompressed TIF format using 300 dpi grayscale . This will work well with most OCR software, and keep the total storage space required within reasonable limits. In 2020 it was decided to do an intermediary step of combining the individual tif images into a pdf image format which is not searchable but is readable. In Phase 2 we will OCR the scanned pages and assemble them into text-searchable PDF's, preserving columns and graphics. This is a long term project which for now is on hold, as some of the copies of the older newsletters are very poor quality and will require extensive work. 

By convention, we will label the newsletters with the month of the meeting announced therein, regardless of when it was printed or distributed. Also for consistency, the archived files will be labeled (for example) 1974-09.pdf to avoid all ambiguity. All the newsletters are now in pdf format but some are photo only and not text pdf.

Entries in the chart below are color-coded. If the color is that of a standard link, then it is active and downloadable. If the color is the same as this text, then we are still working on it. If the color is red, we are missing that issue and would love to get a copy if you have it. If so, please contact the Editor.

Previous to becoming PAS, the POA may have had a newsletter, but no known copies have survived. If you know of any copies, again, please let us know. It is of interest to note that, in the early years of PAS (ca. 1974-78), the newsletter was known as "Sky-Lines." From 1979-1985, our newsletter had no official name. With the October 1985 issue, under the Editorship of Steve Lewis, it became known as "PAStimes." Although the reasons for the choice of this name may seem obvious, there was no discussion of its genesis, or credit given for the name, in any of the newsletters from that year. Note that, for a few of the early years, the publication schedule differed from that of the present. Also note that for a few years after 1985 the newsletter switched between "PAStimes" and not having a name.

To download any issue,  click on the link with the span of years you desire to go to the correct page, then right-click on the month you want and then choose "save target as."  Or you can left-click on it and the newsletter will open in your browser.  All files are in either PDF for zip format and range from 100k to 4M in size.