June 8, 2019
St, not Sj
Originally published February 24, 2010
eight recent issues of Selenology Today
From 1879 to 1883 William Birt, Edmund Neison and other lunar observers conducted systematic studies of the Moon. Physical copies of the five volumes of their Selenographical Journal are now rare. During the last five years a modern group of amateurs has created another lunar journal of their work. The 17th issue of Selenology Today has just appeared, adding 80 pages of careful studies and analyses to the lunar literature. The papers included in ST use modern approaches to determine material compositions, elevations, slopes and geologic history. Two of the leaders of ST - Raf Lena and Christian Wohler - have also been publishing excellent peer-reviewed articles in professional planetary science journals, demonstrating the level of expertise that has developed within ST. ST does share one characteristic with SJ - neither was/is published as part of a journal that was/is widely distributed in libraries so ST may be as hard to find 100 years from now as SJ is today. Or perhaps Google will succeed in digitizing everything - perhaps even books that haven't been written yet - and all will be forever available anytime, anywhere. But I will miss the smell of old books, and feeling the pages that readers 100 years earlier had touched.
Chuck Wood
Yesterday's LPOD: Mount Mystery
Tomorrow's LPOD: A Bulbous Slot
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