For over a decade now, I’ve been fantasizing about starting some sort of a fanzine archive. For years I conceived of the project as a physical repository full of paper copies of fanzines, possibly with some online accessibility component. Then I attended a THATcamp and adopted a new motto (adapted fromTHATcamp’s “Less yack, more hack.”): “Less plan, more scan!”

To that end, last night I scanned issue #1 of Geek Weekly Fanzine the zine I published from 1994 to, well, my blog is called The Return of Geek Weekly, so…ongoing. And this morning, I participated in an extremely helpful advisory session on this topic.

AFDTIP Phase One will focus on Geek Weekly #1, and will be a test case. I am using a quick & dirty method: low-end, consumer-grade all-in-one scanner(-printer-copier) to scan 300dpi greyscale tiff & jpeg. I have already learned that 300dpi is probably overkill for this material, so my next task will be rescanning at 150dpi. 400dpi greyscale tiffs (for possible future uses) & 150dpi greyscale jpegs (for transcription).

I’ll continue blogging this project and documenting the decision making process. I’ll also be fleshing out this quick-and-dirty project description, as well as looking for help with crowdsourcing the transcription & indexing of the issues, so stay tuned! There will soon be a Facebook page Look us up on Facebook (facebook.com/AustinFanzineProject) and on Twitter (@AustinFanzineDT)! possibly a Google Group or some such, so you can get more info & At some point, we’ll solicit advice & set up some way to submit questions & feedback.