ARCHIVES FOR UFO RESEARCH

AFU

Updates (b)log(g) from your webmaster

May 6 Recent donations has been updated with a new Danish collection received last Sunday. My cold has kept me from work (some fever yesterday) but today allowed me to spend a few hours at the archives doing a preliminary sort of these our latest additions.
May 4 "Down" with a slight cold I had some rare time to update our web pages. So, on Projects you will find some fresh pictures from our "new" library (which was actually, in part, our library between 1993 and 2002 and now has made a return as such...). We will soon start placing books onto those empty shelves, and, parallel to that, we will update our media database to reflect the new order in the shelves.

Another update today you can find at Recent donations.

April 8 So where have we been the past two months? No update here, as you might have noticed, but we have been far from the lazy side of life! We have moved 433 IKEA boxes crammed with books, and 50+ book shelves, plus lots of other equipment, over to the new library. This locality is roughly twice the size of our previous library. The work has taken hundreds of hours of sorting, many tiresome kilometers of walking, with sometimes heavy loads. In short, much sweat and possibly even  some tears (in our tired eyes) and a few stains of blood... :-) 

The moving was finalized the day before yesterday, and we are now focusing the coming three months on cleaning up and getting the book & media collection back into a perfect and workable order - an order that is very different from before.

The books will now be arranged by order of our Ufocodes - the specialized tree-structured theme codes that AFU first devised 25 years ago. During the past three months I have personally sorted the almost 10.000 items into the transport boxes, working against computer listings from our book catalogue. In this process I discovered some changes that ought to be made to the Ufocode scheme and to the coding of individual items. Roswell book should be on the Roswell shelf and not somewhere else! But some titles are rather hopeless to categorize! 

I will set up a stationary PC at the library and make corrections to our book & media database, a work that I expect will take another 3-4 months. After that, we should have possibly the World's finest theme-oriented UFO-related collection (books interspersed with documents, videos, CDs, DVDs, specialized clipping collections etc).

Let me take this opportunity to also ask many of our international friends to, please, excuse us for not giving the proper attention to many dormant projects. In 2009, when we are back on fairly normal tracks, we shall make every effort to get things up-to-date (mails, exchanges, promised help with materials, and so on).

Ah... and you can also find today's other updates on the Recent donations and Recent new books sections...
February 3 On Recent donations we note yet another seventeen kilos of UFO-related materials that has arrived at the AFU archives from one of our donors-contributors in Finland.
January 26 Recent acquisitions updated with a collection of six books acquired, for a cheap price, from an American researcher.
January 21 Some of the most recent exchange donations from Russia is noted on Recent donations. Sorry Mikhail, I forgot some of the really unique Russian Samisdat books that we have also received. They should have been in one of the pictures, but more on that in the future, possibly as a special presentation!
January 19 The updates of new materials, brought to AFU on January 8, continue with four boxes of books, magazines and audio tapes from a Swedish donor - see Recent donations.
January 13 AFU has a brand new deal with the Swedish book shop Parthenon for the re-sale of Swedish book titles donated to us, but not needed for the reference library. Parthenon will sell them though their book shop on the net and most of the profit comes back to us. More on this - and links to Parthenon - on AFU Antikvaria & eBay auctions and also on Recent donations where we record new donations by one of Parthenon's proprietors. On Recent new books there is also a new book.
January 12 Today, we are trying to make an offer for an extremely interesting American collection of UFO books & related things. The problem is often that the seller won't sell outside of the US - and that we discover the eBay auction much to late to arrange for other ways. If you see anything that would be of possible interest, please let us know - and as quickly as possible!

In between this eBay activity, I have catalogued a number of new books for the library I have bought myself, but also book titles presented on Recent donations and Recent new books.

January 10 I opened a new year (2008) of Recent donations. Donation news from 2007 and previous years are always clickable on the left of the current Recent donations page.

One never knows what a new year has in store but it has certainly started off at a high pace with all the material received on January 8. And...tomorrow I will fetch the keys to our new library where we will now move in. This the same facility where we previously had our work-places and HQs, but now overhauled, painted and with new steel-doors. 

January 9 Recent donations updated with description of the contents of yet another parcel from Bill Jones in the US.
January 8 An interesting day with a wealth of new archival materials pouring in. In fact, 100s of kilos to sort out and catalogue! I updated Recent visitors with some sketchy details about what was brought here in two cars, and a photo of the visitors, but there will be a number of more detailed reports on many of the recent donations during the next couple of weeks.

While at it, I also updated the (same) Recent visitors page with a journalistic visit we had in October, and which should have been noted before!

Happy New Year!
New Year's fireworks over the centre of Norrkoping.
December 31 The Projects page was updated with the current status of our 'moving-about-with-the-collection' project.  Have a look!
December 30 November and December has been an unusually laborious time at my regular place of work - thus no updates for a two-month period. But don't despair! We'll always be back - when my single eye has had a fair chance to get the necessary period of rest from working too much in front of a computer screen (well, one of them...).

Today's update is on the Recent donations page, where we record the arrival of two heavy parcels from Italy. I've just sent off our December 2007 database of our Magazine collections for the Italians to include in their world-wide overview of international UFO magazine repositories.

A family of Santas on a flying carpet over the Museum of Work in Norrköping, AFU's home town in Sweden. The Santas might as well use a flying saucer to hover over AFU?

October 27 On Recent donations we have noted a new (2007) book, very kindly received as a donation from it's U.S. author. On Magazine collection: Germany you will find news about a collection of magazines received in an exchange deal with a German collector.
October 26 Recent acquisitions was updated with note about a UFO cook book (!) bought on the eBay market. One never knows what objects that will hit the shelves of the Archives for UFO Research! :-)
September 22 A new Belgian UFO book (in French), received this spring, finally made it to the Recent new books page. A new clipping collection donated to us is noted on Clippings: United States.
September 9 Latest developments, with the move of the AFU headquarters to temporary facilities, during August, reported with pictures on our Projects page.
September 5 One of the most recent donations (of two books) noted today on, yes, Recent donations. We always have a backlog of donated items to credit! More to come!
August 9 One evening not spent on moving materials from one archive to another, so we managed a small news article on yet another great donation of Russian books, find it on Recent donations.
August 6 We are working heavily on the "moving-about-with-the-archives" project. More info is now on our Projects page! You can also find another update today of the Magazine collection: United States: A-K page.
July 20 On Recent donations we review another gift to the archives of materials from a Swedish researcher, focusing on writings on earthquake light phenomena, including a bibliography. 
July 19 Another two interesting books arrived from France and are presented, with informational links to the publisher, on Recent new books.
July 17 Well, we finally managed to get the computer up and running again, after a momentary electrical blackout that erased our almost-ready update to the Recent new books section. I have now redone the update and you can view our short review of a new book in French on that page.
July 16 Another fine donation from France noted on Recent donations.
July 4 We've just bought a newly published bibliography from France, se our short presentation on Recent acquisitions!
July 3 Another day with moving materials between our archives. The hundreds of hours poured into this project could have been used for better purposes, but if we are to keep our present (cheap) facilities we will have to continue, tiresome as it may seem. In the end we will have excellent renovated facilities with much better working conditions and security.

Today's update is a short presentation of a new Polish book that Clas Svahn brought to the AFU archives last Saturday. Read about in on Recent donations! 

July 2 This is the last week of my first three vacation weeks. This Monday was spent entirely on AFU work, first trying to get some (even better) order to our magazine collections at the new facility. This last Saturday, Clas Svahn stopped by the main archive to unload yet another batch of materials, most of which was catalogued and put into working order today. And, for about a week now I have been working with the # 52 issue of our newsletter! The Recent acquisitions page has been updated, this evening, with a note about a new Italian book bought (in two copies) for our reference library. Review of the book to follow in our upcoming newsletter!
June 19 The first day of a three week vacation from work! Two hours were spent on a wild goose chase for the most recent package of clippings from Barry Greenwood on the US east coast. Somehow the Swedish Post has created a new routine where parcels are not put in our post box because this would be to slow a process for the parcel to arrive by us, so they have tried delivery at my home - in vain. Result was that the parcel had gone back to the Post distribution center in an industrial area far off to the north of the town. Getting there by bike was quite an adventure! How I hate the world we are building where all distribution of goods becomes more and more dependant on large lorries, super-human monsters who pollute the atmosphere. Of one thing I am sure - my own simple bike doesn't create the warmer climate we are experiencing, except maybe I am sweating more now and thus warming up the atmosphere, indirectly... :-)

At the archives I have integrated another donation of about 50 books into our library (with about half of the books added to our sales shelf) - see the report and photo on Recent donations.

June 16 Two new hard rock records make a welcome visit to our Recent donations page. And, today, also another fine donation of UFO-related magazines and correspondence from a Swedish collector.
June 15 Just a few days now before this year's summer vacation! I hope to spend at least 5-6 days of that three week period working at (and with) AFU. Among other projects I need to publish an issue of the AFU Newsletter.

Today's news on this web are two reports about recent Swedish donations, appropriately on Recent donations. More to come from all the material that Clas Svahn and his colleagues brought here on June 10 (see Recent visitors)!! To get those new collections 'up from the floor' and into our shelves, in an ordered fashion, is a priority. I also have a huge American collection from Rod Dyke that needs to be taken care of this summer. It is resting on the floor in front of the TV in my living room, so I am reminded of it every day!!

Work is otherwise continuing every day at the AFU archives, where, right now, four people come to work every weekday. Sven Olov is responsible for moving our collection due to the renovation project, Sandra continues her clipping database and is now at work with the year 1986.

This spring and summer we also have Christina and Richard, who are both on 'work training' from the Swedish government's Employment Office. AFU is one of the few non-commercial work places in this town where people, with some temporary disability, can come and work for a few hours at a slower pace than what is required by commercial companies and community work-places. Christina is working on a database index for Scandinavian UFO-related magazines and Richard is entering Swedish UFO reports in our ScanCat database, having now arrived into the folders of Swedish reports for the 21st century!

June 11 Yesterday was a hectic day at the archives. You can read more about that on Recent visitors. The UFO-Sweden also brought a number of new donations to the archives collections: donations that will be detailed on our web throughout the coming weeks! So keep a lock out!!
June 5 Another month gone by... No laziness here, however, only lack of time due to a lot of projects going on. In the recent month I have for instance finished the filing of the many elusive items received last November from Hilary Evans in the UK. Today Recent acquisitions was the target of our need for an update on this web!
May 5 A new complete list of our reference library has been published on Book collection. You will find it downloadable from the top alternative in the menu on the right.

In a year the books & media list has grown with 37 pages and is now 278 pages long. The library holds more than 6.000 books, booklets, videos and other media - often in several editions, and often in 2-3 copies, or more. In 2006 we catalogued no less than 868 new items - a record number - and this includes many interesting items from the Hilary Evans collection, hundreds of items in Russian (exchange with Mikhail Gershtein of St. Petersburg) and a large number of commercial videos, which we have started (since the summer of 2006) to add to the books and media library.

April 22 Yesterday we had a visit by members of the Stockholm UFO Society, see report on Recent visitors. Project coordinator Inga-Lill Wallin brought with her a box full of archival materials - see report and inventory on Files from UFO groups and 'ufologists': Sweden - on the 1994-1995 UFO-Sweden investigations of a local recurrent 'ghost light' on the island of Gotland, in the Baltic.
April 1 The eBay sales period during March is now over and has brought in more than 2.500 US dollars to help us with our costs on a few fronts.

Today's updates were two new collections from Norway noted on Recent donations. 

March 22 A new donation from the UK noted on Recent donations.
March 17 The eBay sale is working very well and we will be putting up the last auctions during this weekend (to end during the next weekend)  A huge pyramid of sold materials (worth about 2.000 US dollars) is towering close to my workplace.

2007 has started off better than ever with some 10-11 parcels packed with new materials having arrived here and with Clas in Stockholm. So we have started the Recent donations 2007 with some short news on this. More to follow, but first we have to end the eBay project.

March 6 A "silence" period of almost a month does not mean we have been lazy!! On the contrary, we are now in the final steps of the first removal between the four AFU archives! We must be out of the "C" archive by April 10 when renovation of that house will commence. It seems our schedule will work. Today I took another day off from work concentrating on sorting all the materials that Sven-Olov (and sometimes me) carries over to the new "D" archives. We are slowly getting to our first goal. I also met a gang of technicians from the landlord's and discussed how to evacuate the "A" and "B" archives and what benefits we can get out of the renovation process, for instance better workplaces. We shall have to be out of the "A" facility by September, meaning we will also have a "hot" summer of more removals.

As a bi-product of the sorting and ordering at the new archives I am also looking for materials to sell on eBay - watch out for all of our auctions during March 2007 by clicking here.

February 8 A new page with an alphabetical list of the 176 items donated by Hilary Evans has been posted in the right-hand menu on the Books page and also accessible from Recent donations (with a link to the same page). A most valuable collection of sometimes very rare documents!
February 7 A number of updates to the following pages: Recent donations (2006), Magazine collection: United States L-Z and Magazine collection: Great Britain.
February 5 One month has passed without an update but with a lot of work 'behind the scenes' (and one week of spine problems, and yet another week with a virus and fevers...). Now trying to get everything back to the normal again.

We are (as usual) taken up by a number of projects, including the continued removal of collections from our oldest archive over to our newest facility. Clas Svahn spent this last week here in Norrkoping working at the SMHI (Swedish Metrological and Hydrological Inistitute) archives,  copying a large number of odd weather reports for his files, about half of the week and, then, the second half at AFU, doing a big chunk of the removal work. It was bad that several of us were 'down' with flue and spine problems and couldn't attend the party.

Anyway, for today's update: see the Projects page.

January 6 Yesterday and today I have spent many hours moving the AFU map collection to the new archives. Thousands of maps, mostly of Sweden. A lot of sweat and pain in my feet. The maps form a unique collection where almost every inch of Swedish territory is covered. The collection was intended for use during UFO report investigations but we have had very few instances where maps have been required - if any? Anyhow, we are patient people so we keep on updating the collection with out-of-date maps, donated to us via board member Andreas Ohlsson, who works with a map distributor in Stockholm.

And tonight I have listed on Recent donations, the last batch of books from Janet and Colin Bord. Soon over to the goodies provided by Hilary Evans during the recent tour to Britain...

January 3 On Recent donations we've added yet another fine donation from the UK from the same donors as with the January 1 report.
January 1, 2007 Cataloguing of our the new gifts from British donors continue. Today the Magazine collection: United States (A-K) page has been updated with some beautiful new additions to our shelves.
December 31, 2006

Happy New Year!

 

 

picture from the new year's fireworks in Norrkoping

 
December 30 Updates come almost daily now, when I can spend some days off from the regular (civilian) work. Today's update concerns yet another heap of (mostly) documentary films received from our Norwegian friend, see, again, Recent donations. And a couple of other donations from Britain noted on the same page this evening.

It would have been more if it wasn't for the damned mal-functioning battery in my new Sony digital camera. And the salesman who promised me my new camera would work much longer than the generation of camera I got six years ago. A simple lie! What is it with technology and me? :-)

December 28 Another batch of books received from Hilary Evans in the UK, reported today on Recent donations.
December 27 Recent donations updated with yet two other batches of materials from Clas Svahn's recent grand tour between the homes of UK ufologists. And we are far from halfway through it all!
December 26 Magazine collection: United States (L-Z) updated with a new important donation from the UK.
December 25 Magazine collection: Finland updated with report about the receipt of a valuable set of Finnish Quarterly reports covering the 1974-1989 period. Magazine collection: Great Britain also updated with a catch-up on our holdings of the Fortean Times. Recent donations updated with new and 'semi-new' gifts.
December 23
Season's greetings from Sweden

Santa Claus came to AFU this year with one of the best Christmas gifts ever: a new archive equipped with 400 new meters of mobile shelves. We are now cleaning up and readying the new facility before moving in, early in the new year.

We now have some new space for new donations from across the world. Please contact us if you feel you have a unique (in some way) UFO- or phenomena-related collection that should not be dispersed, or lost to the world.

What happens when you are no longer conscious, or in complete control? What happens with your life's work? A work your mind wouldn't want to be lost in the eternity? Please consider writing a will to AFU's favor.

If you sympathize with our aims we are also always in the need of monetary funds to keep things running. Paying the (relatively cheap!) rents and other costs for the archives is a never-ending problem. This is where you can also make a difference, and actively help preserve what is already one of the finest UFO collections in the world.

If you would consider a donation of your collection, we prefer to integrate your books and magazines with our previous donations, but if you require it, we can keep your more unique materials as a complete unit on its own. We cannot guarantee, however, that we will keep non-unique pieces of your collection since we don't have a never-ending space on our shelves! What we might sell-off (profit going directly back to our work), or use as exchange gifts, is, however, already present in at least one previous original within our system. This we guarantee.

December 18 Another fine donation from Finland noted on Recent donations today. Arrived here last Wednesday in a major car-load of materials delivered by Clas Svahn.
December 16 Two new donations from the UK updated on Recent donations. A new Swedish book from a contactee added to the collection and reported on Recent acquisitions.
December 14 Recent donations updated with more photos and details on yet another recent donation from Sweden.
December 13 Another huge delivery of archival goodies to AFU today. Read more about it on Recent visitors. Details of all the new donations will eventually be spread out across the pages of this web site during the coming months - so watch out!
December 1 Installation of the shelves-on-rails was completed today and a report on this can be found at Projects.
November 30 Installation of the new compact shelves started Monday, November 27 and is progressing with every day. We will soon give you fresh pictures from the new archive! Meanwhile we can present the first new section - in one corner of our new archives - that will house our SF (science fiction) media collection. See more about this on Projects. Håkan Blomqvist has received a box with a new donation for the archives: see Recent donations 2006.
November 18 Clipping collection: Scandinavia updated with a new Norwegian collection that covers the years 1954-1964.
November 15 Clas Svahn arrived in the evening with another car-load of materials for the archives. This will - of course - result in a number of updates to this site, the coming weeks. New donations are reported on Recent donations 2006 from Finland and USA.
November 11 Today's little journey went to the local IKEA store to buy 32 paper boxes to keep our fine collection of American SF pulp magazines under the conditions they deserve. The SF collection was the first part to be moved to the new archive facility this week. We have five full months to go before we have to evacuate completely from the old "C" archives, so there is no real hurry. Such a comfort! Everyone who sees the new facility thinks it is a hit! Have you seen our recent updates on this on the Projects sub page?

Tonight's updates were on Clipping collection: United States and Clipping collection: Scandinavia (a new sub page where we do have several other collections to put out descriptions of...). There is also a new donation noted on Recent donations. Materials keep flowing in, we have just learned there are probably  new very important collections coming from Norway and from the United Kingdom (where Clas Svahn and Anders Persson will go at the end of November to fetch another car-load of gems).

November 6 Recent visitors updated with a report of yesterday's visit to AFU by members of a local Sports & Health club. Yesterday we also updated the Projects section with fresh pictures from the new AFU archive facility which is now ready for moving in! Take a look!
October 15 The good news of the year came to us the previous week. The Swedish National Archives awarded us a grant of 82.000 SEK for new shelves for our new facility - read more on Projects.
September 22 It has become more like a habit - many Fridays - to go to the Post Office to fetch the latest parcel from our Norwegian benefactor Ole Jonny Braenne. So this Friday. In the latest parcel we found the most recent Norwegian UFO-contactee book, self-published by a new Norwegian lady - see Recent donations 2006.
September 21 Three new donations reported on Recent donations 2006.
September 19 A day with a running nose has finally gotten me out from my regular place of (civilian) work and back in front of the AFU desk. Today, my old digital camera returned to a living existence (from being hidden behind a stack of uncatalogued materials) and inside it I found the picture now found on Files from UFO organisations and ufologists: Sweden. This is but one of many recent newcomers on our shelves of materials from Swedish ufology groups and people who have been active in ufology. 
September 9 Magazine collection: France updated with a new exchange of French publications.
September 8 My new portable computer, for handling the AFU databases, is finally up and running, and so is my new digital camera, which will hopefully start a new flow of updates on this web site, as time permits. Starting off with a fine stack of new magazines on the Magazine collection: Hungary page.

This summer I have started to catalogue & integrate new donations from Ole Jonny Braenne into the collections. See some of the materials updated on Recent donations, today. We have - for instance - received some 25 Norwegian audio tapes of interviews and public talks, being entered into our database - right now - by Vivianne, our most recent co-worker at the archives. I have also managed - myself, this summer - to view and catalogue some 50 video tapes (documentaries, UFO-related fiction) received from our Norwegian friend. What a mix of quality and time-wasters! And I still have a big heap of other video tapes heaped in the corner of my room...
August 30 Recent visitors updated with a working link to a Romanian site with theories on how to propel a UFO - or more broadly "free energy"... 
August 28 Well, with a regular job you never know when you will be free...!! This is the first (belated) vacation day of an (expected) fortnightly period. Clas Svahn came by the archives, today, with another car-load of archival materials, some of which will be detailed very soon....

AFU is seeking a grant for new compact shelves for a projected new archive, which will be used during the evacuation of our other facilities for repairs, and for future expansion. We do need it! A lot of details on this project can be found in the lead article of the just published AFU Newsletter # 51, to be found under the heading AFU Newsletter.

August 22 Just 24 hours before I can start to enjoy a 14 day vacation, hopefully filled with fulfilling work at, and with, the AFU archives. Many of us dream of being able to work their full time! On top of the 'menu' for the 10 workdays is primarily a re-install of Microsoft Access which crashed a couple of weeks ago leaving me in limbo with so many projects. Access simply won't start - some say it might be because of a mysterious font called 'Hatten' has been installed on my computer by some foreign process. I'll raise my hat if they are correct! Clas Svahn sent a picture of a collection of paraphernalia received from the US, see picture on Recent donations.
August 4 Hot from the DVD burning machine comes a DVD disc from one of the speakers at this summer's MUFON symposium - see Recent donations.
August 3 Hardly any time for rest and vacation here at AFU! A couple of projects have been running throughout the summer and will eventually be presented here. No updates on this page for a few weeks is merely a sign that so many other things are going on, with no time left over for being the web master! Right now I am trying to produce another issue of the AFU Newsletter for publication, probably next week.

Today I met a very nice Romanian UFO researcher, author and free energy theorist who visited the archives and library, much impressed with what he have done and are doing. A report on this, and the unique Romanian book we were given, can be found on Recent visitors.

July 7 Arranging the files from Norwegian ufologist Odd-Gunnar Røed has been an on-going project for a few months, this spring. Our Norwegian representative Ole Jonny Brænne has made ufology a great service by saving this file and sending it to AFU, where it has formed the base for a Project Hessdalen archive that will probably grow with time. View the details on Files from groups and ufologists: Norway. Ole Jonny has recently (this spring-summer) sent AFU another six boxes (about 80 kilos!) of materials - mostly books, video tapes and print originals for Norwegian UFO publications. I fetched the latest box from Ole Jonny as late as today. Not yet credited on our web, but we are working on it...
July 6 Spent a good part of the day at our three archives (soon to become four!). First, cataloguing incoming magazines from Russia, and around the world, in the "A" archive, then, sorting out fresh copies for the book library, and copies to sell, from a recent Swedish donation, at the "B" library, and, finally, to round it off, a few hours at the "C" archive sorting out old files and throwing away a lot of old book catalogues and lists from book sellers. And, now, updating a new item added to Recent donations, a nice gift from the widow of a recently deceased UFO-Sweden member. Giving any UFO-related collection away to AFU is a much better alternative than plowing it down in a corn field!
July 5 Last week Clas Svahn delivered another fine donation to the library, reported on Recent donations. On the same page we also report of an interesting parcel from France that arrived here last week and the contents of which is being catalogued, today.
July 4 AFU has just received a parcel of Polish UFO-related books as reported under Recent acquisitions.
June 13 A fine collection of UFO books from Finland (and Estonia) is credited on Recent donations.
June 12 Recent donations updated with note about a new photo book received from the United States.
June 9 One week ago AFU was visited by Dr. David Clarke, ufologist, journalist and folklorist from Sheffield. This is reported on Recent visitors, and also on Clas Svahn's UFO-Sweden blogg. Clas brought with him the usual load of materials from all corners of the world, including his own donations, reported on Recent donations. More to come!
May 25 So many things to update on this web site - so little time. My professional job takes it's toll on me every spring and early summer, but there will come other times in mid-June, I hope.

However, I have updated our Magazines: France page with a nice little collection of new French materials received a few weeks ago. Big thank you's also to Barry Greenwood, Ole Jonny Braenne, Tapani Koivula, Mikhail Gershtein, and a couple of others, whose materials we have received, but not yet catalogued and credited.

May 15 Recent acquisitions updated with a series of Corliss' Sourcebooks bought from the US.
May 3 Recent donations updated with a new Swedish donation.
April 24 Almost a month has gone while I have been working on different AFU projects, including our accounting & economy for the year 2005. Yesterday, Clas Svahn delivered another load of materials, mostly from Finland and Russia. More about that within the coming weeks!!!

Today's first update, however, concerns new material for our Magazine collection: United States A-K, reported at the top of that inventory page. A second update can be found on our Projects page, where we note an on-going project to inventory the organizational archives from Swedish ufologists. Third update: a new picture to illustrate our growing library on Photo tour part 2. The photo by Clas Svahn is more representative of the current library!
March 25 Recent acquisitions updated with an old UFO film - now available at AFU on DVD disc.  Recent donations updated with a donation of George Adamski lecture tapes + CDs. Files from ufologists and UFO organizations: Sweden updated with new tapes (audio cassettes and CDs) in the Alve Holmqvist collection.  Projects also updated with figures on 2005 book acquisitions.
March 20-23 We have spent a few days off-line, on vacation at Kiruna in the extreme north of Sweden. Although we didn't manage to get to see the Esrange space base, we got a nice sighting of the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, in the -25 degrees (Celsius) north-Swedish winter night. Things we also recommend you to see, while in the north of Sweden, are InfoMine - the underground tour to the impressive Swedish LKAB iron ore mine - and, of course the Ice Hotel at Jukkasjärvi, wherefrom comes our picture below - one of the ice rooms where you can spend a polar night - if you dare (and have the money for it)!!            
March 12 Magazine collection: Norway and Recent donations updated with more collections donated to AFU.
March 11 I had gotten it terribly wrong with the Finnish UFO book noted under Recent donations. Thank you Björn Borg (not the Swedish tennis athlete, though) for correcting me.
March 9 Recent donations updated, reviewing some of the most recent donations by AFU board member (and UFO-Sweden chairman) to the ever-growing AFU library collection. Clas was at the archives in the early morning of March 7 with a number of deliveries to be presented within the coming weeks.
March 5 Magazine collection: Finland and Magazine collection: USA A-K and L-Z updated with new lists and presentations of publications received by AFU.
March 4 Recent donations updated with a note about the latest - and the very last - volume in Loren E. Gross's  privately distributed UFO's a history series. It is sad that this material cannot be professionally printed and distributed as a complete historical series, due to copyright reasons.

The series is a chronological review of what happened in UFO history based on the most reliable sources: Project Blue Book files, well known UFO books, materials from APRO, NICAP, FSR and other major sources, UFO clipping collections and other privately received info.

February 21 We are late to report this, but AFU finally bought the 400+ books from the French Perry Petrakis collection, shortly before Christmas 2005. This is reported in more detail on our new Books: French sub page under the Book Collection section, where the history of this deal - and the list of donors - has been moved. Many thanks to Edoardo Russo and Jacques Scornaux who made this deal possible when we had - ourselves - started to despair!

AFU people has been updated with several new entries and edited.

February 19 Recent acquisitions updated with a note on our collection of Jenny Randles-related books.
February 18 Some ten new and old books in the mailbox this week. Two of them are given short reviews on Recent donations.
February 11 This week two packages arrived with new materials, the first from Denmark (probably the tail-end of the SUFOI library) and the second from Russia, from AFU's new exchange partner in St. Petersburg. For more details on the latter see Recent donations 2006.
February 5 A new CD with a CBS interview of US contactee Marke A. Norman is credited on Recent donations 2006.
January 23 A day like every day should be! I have been free from regular (paid) work! Well, I had a few work-related phone calls resulting in notes for action - but tomorrow! Morning spent sorting out materials for the archives in the biggest suitcase my poor bike can take. Materials from eBay and our latest donations.

One of AFU's former co-workers phoned - we will meet the day after tomorrow in the company of a man from the (un)-employment office to possibly arrange for a work-period at the archives. Packed the last items into an exchange box for Rod Dyke in Seattle (9.3 kilos) and took it to the Post Office. Bought another standard box there for shipping to Russia, and packed that box with about 40-45 books (another 8-9 kilos) to be sent to our friend in St. Petersburg. Sandra, at the archives, is close on updating the 10.000nd clipping in her database. We will celebrate that occurrence on Thursday! Spent an hour tonight posting Stefan Isaksson's summary of UFO-Aktuellt issue 2, 2005, as a PDF, here.

January 22 Recent donations 2006 updated with description of some of the contents of yet another fine parcel that we just received from Denmark.  Magazine collection: Switzerland updated with a gift of two issues that completes our collection of one Swiss publication.  English summary of UFO-Aktuellt, issue # 3 for 2005 posted.
January 21 AFU People updated with presentations and pictures of Sven-Olov Svensson and Stefan Isaksson.
January 15 Summary of UFO-Aktuellt issue 4/2005 posted.
January 14 Review of a parcel of new materials received this week from France, the first note on our new page Recent donations 2006. Previous HTML of AFU Newsletter # 48 & 49 have been replaced with PDF files.
January 13 A new French UFO history received and reviewed today under Recent new books.
January 11 Downloadable PDF of our most recent AFU Newsletter now available on that section. Issue #50 should have been a big and fat commemorative issue but... 
January 10 Downloadable PDF files of the entire AFU book collection is now available on the Book collection section. A similar listing of our serials (magazines - journals - newsletters) archives is available on the Magazine collection section. Each of these cover all materials catalogued up to January 2006 and each will cost you about 250 pages of paper and some printer ink to produce copies for your own collection! I am not sure whether our European A4 size will work so well on American printers for Legal/Letter format. Could someone try and report to us?
January 8 Book collection section has been updated with yet two new listings: Book acquisitions 2005 for English and non-English titles.
January 6 AFU people is a new sub-section on our web. First entries posted today. Read more about who we are!
January 3 "The Italian example" is a saying in UFO circles. I have reviewed one of the latest monographs to come out of CISU's centre at Torino, under Recent Acquisitions. This was the 417th - probably the last? - title to be catalogued to our book collection for the year 2005. We now have a total of 5.724 titles/different editions in our inventory & database.
January 2 Recent acquisitions updated with a mini-review of a new British booklet about the Warminster phenomena.
January 1, 2006 Recent donations (2005) page updated with more goodies received from Denmark. Book collection section updated with three new book lists : Books donated in 2005 by SUFOI, plus lists of new English and non-English books catalogued by AFU during 2004.
December 31, 2005
A Happy New 2006 to you all! We spent a few hours, New Year's Eve, walking along the Norrköping River Stream ('Strömmen') with it's wonderful illuminated waterfalls, trees with millions of lights and a 'lagom' 
(the unique Swedish word for 'just enough') snow cover.  And fireworks! The 'blobs' in the picture, above , are not UFO 'orbs', or anything mysterious, but snowflakes slowly falling to the ground in front of my digital camera!  If anyone was in doubt??
December 26 Recent donations (2005) updated with a short review of a new Norwegian doctoral thesis we received in the spring.
December 25 Recent acquisitions updated with a mini-review of a French UFO book we bought through the eBay market.
December 23 Recent books updated with a new Swiss title that arrived here about 2 months ago. Have not had the time to credit it - until now. AFU Newsletter # 50 was distributed in it's paper form to Swedish donors this week, to arrive before Christmas (and payment day for many people ;-) )
December 16 After two weeks drowned in professional work I am back with an update on the Recent donations 2005 page. If everything works out well I will use this weekend to edit another edition of the AFU Newsletter - issue # 50,
December 4 Sponsorships and donations sub-page updated with better information on IBAN/BIC codes and PayPal account for European and international payments to the AFU foundation. If you like our work, please consider becoming an annual sponsor!
November 22 Recent donations 2005 updated with another donation of books to the reference library.
November 21 Projects sub-section updated with two new project descriptions.  A new Clipping collection - United States page opened to present the Earl Neff clipping collection with volume directory (20 volumes).
November 20 The very belated AGM's for the years 2003 and 2004 were held in good spirit at the AFU archives yesterday. At the AGM a number of new collections were presented by Clas Svahn, our world-wide roving collector of things ufological and phenomenological. Two of these lots are displayed on our Recent donations page from today. More to come! See also Recent visitors.
November 5 AFU's History updated with an old picture of the AFU gang (displaying a UFO cake complete with landed saucer) recently located by AFU archivist Sven-Olov Svensson   in his personal files.
October 27 A new section Projects opened today, where we intend to review recently finished and on-going projects at the AFU center. Also note an on-going AFU sale of books and magazines on eBay - follow the link from our AFU Antikvaria page!
October 4 Magazine collection: France updated with a review of the most recent issue of Lumières dans la Nuit (LDLN), just received.
September 1 I have spent part of the day doing some preliminary sorting of yet another great donation that arrived here last Sunday. Please view the preliminary report with photos on the Juan Manzanares   collection under Recent donations!
August 31 Finally out on the other side of three days of fever in the company of the obligatory autumn cold!!    Today I have reviewed two new books in our library under the Recent acquisitions and Recent donations headings, respectively.  Also a summary of the first issue of UFO-Aktuellt for 2005.
August 28, 2005 Annual reports section updated with a complete 2004 report.
August 24, 2005 Annual reports section updated with the 2003 (!) annual report & economy summary. Better late than never!
July 9, 2005 Recent acquisitions updated with text and photos from yet another fine collection acquired by AFU this summer, and a new book that touches on the 1930s ghost fliers. Recent donations 2005 updated with another book that has links to the 1946 ghost rocket phenomenon. By the way, today (July 9) is the 59th anniversary of the daylight meteoric phenomenon that initiated that wave.
July 8, 2005 Recent donations and Clippings UK updated with new acquisitions for the library and clippings archive.
July 6, 2005 AFU Newsletter # 49    is out in it's printed version and now with a link under the AFU Newsletter page.
June 17, 2005 Gosh! Two months since last update! The winter season at work  is over, and here comes the summer with lots of new energy & time to realize (at least a few of) the archival projects that's been on our mind!! The warmth of the sun, that everyone in Sweden longs for, except for two members of the AFU team , makes it a true pleasure to spend days in the cool archival cellars of AFU! 

There are a number of needed updates to complete during the coming first weeks of my vacation period -- the first item you can find on Recent donations, a new book edited by Pia Andersson.  We also report - under Recent acquisitions - about a fantastic collection acquired last week by AFU from Swedish ufologist Boris Jungkvist.

April 17, 2005 A new section Recent acquisitions added, with report on a newly produced 4-disc CD set of 1970's radio shows,  bought from the US.
April 9, 2005 The Patrick Murray  clipping collection   (see April 3) updated with two further volumes (volume 11 & 12) that we forgot about - sorry. View item at the bottom of the Clipping collection United Kingdom page! Also:  Recent visitors updated.
April 4, 2005 Clipping collection United Kingdom updated with details about the Tyneside UFO Society's   clipping collection (received in 2003, now catalogued).
April 3, 2005 Clipping collection United Kingdom updated with more details and volume-by-volume presentation concerning the Patrick Murray   collection.
April 2, 2005 Recent visitors, Recent donations & Recent new books updated with news about a new delivery by Clas Svahn   to the archives. A new page created, beforehand, for the Annual report 2005 to include report on exchange materials sent to the US. 
March 30, 2005 Damned! Free for a whole week to work on AFU, and, of course , hit by the flue!! Anyway, today's small labor is the AFU Newsletter 48, added in it's HTML version. The Newsletter was out in January, to our sponsors, in it's print version. Better late than never!
March 27, 2005 Recent new books updated with a new book title donated to AFU by Robert Bartholomew & Hilary Evans.
March 26, 2005 Thank you Christianity for fixing a few days off from work for me, this is what you call "Easter"... ;-)  Today's updates came under Recent donations 2005 with three new listings added. New Loren Gross booklets, Blue Book archives on CD-ROMs, and a donation from Switzerland.
March 25, 2005 A new Danish booklet reviewed under Recent books. New page Recent donations 2005 opened with a first item, an excellent Spanish bibliography donated by its author.  And --- we found in our files a nice photo of donor-ufologist Bruno R. Ericsson that was added to our Annual report for 2002.
March 21, 2005 Today's update comes under the sub-page Recent visitors.
February 13, 2005 Transferring data & files to a new computer took me almost three months, and cost me an extra 5.000 SEK over what I had planned! Yet, here we are again, as stubborn as ever! Today's major update can be found under Recent donations where three fine donations from the London area are reported. With one of these donations - from Hilary Evans - came also a very fine British collection of clippings, inventoried under Clipping collections where a new sub page for United Kingdom has been created. From Hilary Evans also came a complete bound collection of the first 12 volumes of UFO Magazine, as we have noted under Magazine collection: United States L-Z.
November 23, 2004 New sub-page in the Clippings collection that lists donations (in 1997 and 2003) from NZ researcher Murray Bott. 
November 21, 2004 Summary translation of the most recently published issue of  UFO-Aktuellt, issue 3 for 2004, added. 
November 20, 2004 Time flies by! This autumn I have been deeply involved with several projects at my work, projects that stole even my spare-time hours for AFU! This does not mean that we have been rolling our thumbs, though, as will be apparent from updates to appear here within the next month, or so. Tonight I have updated our Recent donations page with photos and description of a fantastic magazine collection received from Rod B. Dyke, a collection that plugs many of our annoying holes! 
September 8, 2004 Off-work and time for some revisions! Index page and AFU-Antikvaria: Germany updated with links to 10-day eBay auction for a collection of 327 UFO-Nachrichten issues. Recent visitors and Recent donations updated with items from a new car-load of materials brought into the archives on August 26 and a new CD from the Daniel Fry documentation project. 
August 13, 2004 Files from UFO groups and ufologists: Sweden updated with a presentation of the Åke Franzén archive, with pictures. The file was acquired in 1995 but has only now been cataloged. 
August 4, 2004 Recent new books updated with news on two Norwegian UFO-related titles. 
August 2, 2004 Magazine collection and Magazine collection: Germany updated with details on new acquisitions. Several new gifts added to Recent donations. 
July 20, 2004 Recent new books portraits some recent acquisitions in the growing religious genre where UFO phenomena are theorized as being 'demonic' by character. Magazine collection: United States L-Z updated with the now complete collection of OMNI Magazine. 
July 19, 2004 New main section Magazine indexes created with four sub pages leading to contents indexes for the International UFO Reporter (IUR) 1976-1994 and Skylook 1969-1976, predecessor for the MUFON UFO Journal. . 
July 15, 2004 Recent donations reports a new donation of 11 booklets published by the cultist Australian group QDW. 
July 12, 2004 Recent new books reviews an Italian book on the 1946 ghost rocket phenomenon, published this summer. Files from UFO groups and 'ufologists' was updated with a Sweden, ufologists subpage where the Alve Holmqvist file, donated to AFU, is presented. 
July 11, 2004 Recent new books updated with new Finnish book that records all (?) UFO sightings and UFO opinions by astronomers, world-wide. 
July 8, 2004 Magazine collection -- Russia with news & pictures concerning a major collection of Russian mags which came to us in 2003 and now has been cataloged. List of Russian magazines also brought up-to-date. 
July 6, 2004 Magazine collection -- United States A-K and L-Z updated from an up-to-date database. AFU has, among other items, acquired a  complete collection of The Zetetic/Skeptical Inquirer magazine. 
July 5, 2004 Recent new books updated with new French essay. 
June 23 & June 25, 2004 Lot's of (non-UFO) work during April, May and June has prevented us from updates, so we have a backlog of things to report.  Recent donations 2004 has been updated with new donations. More to come! 
April 9, 2004 An early Annual report 2004 created to report the acquisition of 17 new book shelf sections from IKEA. Removal, within the library, of our 7.000 volume library is now underway. The delivery increased our capacity for books by 50 %. 
April 8, 2004 AFU Newsletter #42 now available for download as a PDF file. 
March 13-16, 2004 AFU Newsletter #47 just published and "www version" (html) added under AFU Newsletter.  New section Lending library added with 6 subpages. Lists all books and documents where we have two copies, one of which being available for loan, if you live in Sweden.  Recent new books updated with a new French book by Claude Poher and a booklet from Danish SUFOI. Recent donations updated with the first donations of Chinese UFO books. 
February 27, 2004 Photo tour updated on page 9 with guidelines about copying materials from the AFU archives & library. 
February 21, 2004 Updates to Recent visitors, people who have been here during 2003 and 2004, and Recent donations 2004. A new page Recent new books created to review recently published books donated to AFU by publishers & authors. The Book collection section was also enlarged with two new subpages that lists the Book donation from Hilary Evans (October 2003) and the Book donations from Ole Jonny Braenne (during 2002-2003). 
February 15, 2004 This week we made updates to Recent donations 2004 (new materials from Bill Jones and Loren Gross). We also added an English summary of issue 2003/4 to the UFO-Aktuellt section, and updated lists to Book acquisitions 2003 (English and non-English titles) adding a total of 776 new titles to our inventory for that year alone.  
January 24, 2004 Recent donations 2003 updated with the gift of a new video machine to the archives. New page Recent donations 2004 created and updated with new media donations from Chile and New Mexico. 
December 16, 2003 Recent donations 2003 updated with report and picture of two recent boxes of Norwegian materials received by AFU. 
November 7, 2003 Recent donations 2003 updated with pictures of Hilary Evans and Philip Creighton. 
October 27, 2003 Translation summary of UFO-Aktuellt issue 3, 2003, added. 
October 22, 2003 New Clippings statistics by year 1970-2002 sub page under the Clipping collection main section. The diagram summarizes the number of Swedish clippings received each year from our clipping bureau. 
October 21, 2003 Recent donations 2003 updated. 
October 19, 2003 A major update of the site.  New main sections: Ufocodes (alphabetical) and Books by Ufocodes (with 15 sub pages -- listing our entire library collection by main subjects). The last section lists more than 4.200 different  UFO-related titles in our reference library. Also special lists of all books and documents acquired in 2002 and 2003 (up to Oct 19) in our Book collection section.  Recent donations 2003 updated with news on two major donations from the UK this weekend. 
September 24, 2003 Recent donations 2003 updated with new book-boxes arriving from Norway and the United States. Coming soon...  during this autumn: Our accumulated list of titles in the book reference library, plus lists of new book titles added during 2002 and 2003. 
September 15, 2003 Annual report for 2002 finally on the net...
September 6, 2003 Recent donations 2003 updated, again... 
August 27-28, 2003 Recent donations 2003 updated, and French donation list.  AFU Newsletter # 46 posted in it's web version. 
July 7, 2003 Recent donations 2003 updated with two new donations in July. List of donors to French collection updated. 
June 18, 2003 French donation list updated with new donors 
May 19, 2003 English translations of UFO-Aktuellt issues 4/2002 and 1/2003 added to the UFO-Aktuellt section. French donation updated with another batch of donors. 
May 4, 2003 French donation page updated with new donors. 
April 8, 2003 AFU by-laws added (new section); French collection & AFU's history updated. 
April 6, 2003 AFU Newsletter #45 added to the site. 
April 4, 2003 French collection: updated with new sum and new contributors. 
Mar 22, 2003 Recent donations update with new material the previous week. 
Mar 17, 2003 Recent donations updated with Swedish reports 2000-2001. 
Mar 16, 2003 Recent donations & French collection updated. 
Mar 9, 2003 French collection updated with new sum and with new numbers for UFO-Sweden's Scandinavian bank accounts. New section Annual reports added with reports for 2001 and 2002. 
Mar 4, 2003 French collection donors and a major sale of antiquarian books updated. 
Feb 22, 2003 French collection pages updated, also with sub-page presenting an up-to-date list of Scandinavian donors. 
Feb 16, 2003 Updates of several sections: Recent donations, Recent visitors, Magazine collections, UFO-Aktuellt, etc. 
Feb 9, 2003 Three new Recent donations added. 
Jan 29, 2003 AFU collection for SOS-OVNI files updated with recent results from the collection campaign. 
Jan 19, 2003 New page promoting the AFU collection to save the French SOS_OVNI files. 
Jan 5, 2003 New section AFU's history added. This is an updated and illustrated version.  
Jan 1, 2003 New section Files from UFO groups and 'ufologists' added. Sub-section Norway with the Finn W. Kalvik archive (10 volumes) catalogued during December 2002. 
Dec 15, 2002 Recent donations updated with new batch of things from UFO-Sweden, AFU Antikvaria updated (Swedish UFO books). 
Dec 6, 2002 AFU Antikvaria updated after sale of English, non-UFO titles: Recent donations updated with new package from Norway
Dec 4, 2002 Summary of UFO-Aktuellt issue 3/2002 posted in the UFO-Aktuellt section. 
Nov 18, 2002 Recent visitors updated. 
Nov 17, 2002 Recent donations updated with three new items. 
Nov 3, 2002 AFU Antikvaria section updated due to sales and new titles put on sale. 
Nov 1, 2002 Recent donations section updated with new things "coming into our system". 
Oct 27, 2002 New Recent visitors section added to the site. 
Oct 22, 2002 New Book collection section included with link from main page and with book acquisition listing for 2001.
Oct 22, 2002 Ufocode systematic listing included as a link from the main page. 
Oct 22, 2002 AFU Newsletter section updated with AFU Sponsornytt issues (published in Swedish) 
Oct 21, 2002 Magazine collection, inventories for Europe and world-wide countries added. 
Oct 14, 2002 Magazine collection (new section) included with inventories of Scandinavian serial publications. 
Oct 13, 2002 New main section UFO-Aktuellt with links to recent English summaries of issues 1 and 2/2002. 
Sept 28, 2002 Recent donations updated with other donations in the June - September period. 
Sept 27, 2002 AFU Antikvaria - sold titles and new titles (Norwegian, Swedish & English books).
Sept 27, 2002 New section: Recent donations. Five first entries (donations received during August and September).
   
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