1. Whydoes the Plain Truth CD only cover the years 1934-1960 and the Good News CD1951-1969? Will CD's be available to cover later years?
Theonly reason why the CD's end at those years is that the CD's are FULL. If morewould have fit on the CD's, then they would have been included. All remainingissues of the Plain Truth (until they went to a subscription basis), and allremaining issues of the Good News will eventually be available as time permits.
2. Willother HWA materials be made available?
Yes,as time permits.
3. Whatdo I need to do to order the CD's listed?
Please send your mailingaddress to us via email or postal mail. Our mailing address is:
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The HWA Library &Archives
P.O. Box 1323
Jamestown, TN 38556
4. Howare these CD's being paid for?
TheseCD's are provided free of charge by those to whom God has seen fit to providethe means to do so. The HWA Library is anon-profit, non-incorporated organism composed of those who are dedicated topreserving all of the HWA-era literature available and also freely giving it toothers. The Herbert W. Armstrong Library is NOT affiliated with any churchorganization and will provide our materials to anyone, from any churchorganization, and to those who may not have ever had any church of godaffiliation.
5. Howcan I help with the effort to preserve the historical documents of the WCG?
Thegreatest help could be provided by visiting the WCGLiterature Swap Page to see if you may have materials that are needed. Wecan arrange to trade you for the item by swapping with you items from ourduplicates, or we would appreciate borrowing the item to scan it and then returnit to you. Eventually, everything we receive will be available to others, soany materials you are able to share with us will be shared with others whovalue this material.
6. Willyou produce more CD's of Mr. Armstrong's radio and sermon tapes?
ABSOLUTELY,as time permits. The biggest task is tosort out the duplicates from all the tape lists. We are in the process ofpreparing a detailed listing of our entire tape inventory (about 500 tapes) toshare with others. Eventually, all tapes will be converted to CD. This tapelist will include a transcription of the first three sentences of the body ofthe message. This is the only feasible way we have identified so far to sortout the many different tape dates and titles.
7. ThePlain Truth and Good News CD are photo-images only. Will they be converted to asearchable program like the HWA Literature CD?
YES!The process of scanning and converting documents into a searchable program is amulti-step process, and with current technology, a very time consuming process.
Thefirst step is to scan from paper to create a photo-image. This step of theprocess takes a good amount of time, but is a small percentage of the totalconversion process; approximately 10% of the total time.
Afterthe photo-image is made, the next step is to convert the image using specialsoftware (OCR -- Optical Character Recognition) to a digital file. This issimilar to having a person type it into a computer file using a keyboard. Thisportion of the total process also takes only about 10% of the total time of theentire conversion process.
Afterthe OCR process is done, the remaining 80% of the time of this entire processis used to proof-read the final file. The OCR process is not 100% accurate, soa person needs to proof-read what the computer has created to make sure anytypographical errors are corrected. We try to have each file proof-read threetimes, plus running it thru a spell-checker. But some typo errors may stillexist, but none intentional. So if there is ever any doubt about the electronicversion of the book or article, please go to the paper version to clarify theerror. That is one reason the photo-images are helpful to have available -- tobe able to clarify any typographical errors in the electronic text.
Butthe main reason we offer the photo-images at this time is that at least the rawmaterial is available for your study today. If we waited to release the CD'suntil everything was converted, the amount of material now available to youwould be a small portion. Given the overwhelming need to have this materialavailable today, it was decided to release the photo-images until such time thesearchable version was ready.
Itis our strong desire to have everything available in a searchable program, aswell as the photo-images, as our time and resources permit.
8. Arepaper versions of the contents of the Church Literature, The Good News,and The Plain Truth CD's available for those without computers?
Unfortunately,we are unable to provide paper versions of the contents of these CD's due tothe time and resources necessary to produce them.
Wetruly regret not being able to help those who are unable to use these CD'sdirectly, it is just too impractical for us to provide paper-versions at thistime.
Forexample, The Good News CD contains approximately 3000 pages of themagazine. If 3000 pages were copied at 5 cents (US) each, it would cost aboutUS$150. Plus it would be three packages of paper (500 sheets each,double-sided).
Butthe real cost is the time involved in photo-copying or printing the pages. Ifit took only 15 seconds to print or copy each page (and that is FAST!), that is12.5 HOURS!
Consider,too, that The Plain Truth CD contains over 2600 pages, so it would costalmost the same amount of time and expense.
And,when future CD's are available (it may take another 10-12 CD's to finish theseries), the numbers become even larger.
Sowe simply cannot offer this service at this time.
Toassist those without computers, please consider helping others in your local areause these CD's. Consider helping train them on how to use a computer, orconsider offering to print off certain issues or topics each week and bringthem to Sabbath services. These opportunities to serve will help others benefitfrom these contents of these CD's.
