ARCHIVES FOR UFO RESEARCH
AFU
Updates logg & blogg from your webmaster
| Nov 22 | I have continued to update our web here and there today. A lot of my energy has gone into the page Recent donations. To keep up with recent news & donations from AFU's horizon I suggest you should read that page from the top and down now! | ||
| Nov 21 | A major exchange-donation from France noted today on Recent donations, where we also credit three other fine Swedish donations during this autumn. | ||
| Nov 17 | The almost two-month absence of updates here is effectively explained today on our Projects page. As always, we have not been lazy, just working under strict priorities! | ||
| Sept. 22 | Finally, the filing and cataloguing of the Jan Ove Sundberg archives is (at least for the moment) finished and the result has been posted on Files from UFO groups and ufologists: Sweden. | ||
| Sept. 11 |
140 kilos of archival materials
(acid-free archival boxes and acid-free papers for covers) were
delivered today at one of our archives. This is work materials for
our up-coming project to raise the status of our Swedish UFO report
files, upgrade the ScanCat database and digitize the report
archives. It is expected we will employ 2-3 out-of-work people on
this project, starting soon. The project just needs more preparation
before it can start.
Find a new interesting Swedish book on a 1944 V-2 crash in south-Sweden presented on Recent new books. |
||
| Sept. 10 | We are trying to get up-to-date with recent things happening in and around AFU, and a long chain of recent donations... Today's fantastic 'news' is the recent acquisition by AFU of one of the three existing copies of the Fortean Picture Library run by Janet and Colin Bord from Wales. They will be moving and have shipped a lot from their extensive archives to AFU for preservation. Find out more about this on Recent donations. | ||
| Sept. 9 |
Not all things work out as planned.
Yesterday we had planned to kick off our new project with sorting,
checking and scanning the Swedish UFO reports archive, but I had to
put the project on hold at least for a month. On the Sunday I had
spent seven hours in the emergency rooms of our local hospital after
having developed what we in Sweden call 'the crystal sickness'
(extreme temporary dizziness and indisposition due to displacement
of crystals in the ear, affecting the balance). I was extremely
tired afterwards and could not go through with starting the project.
There were also other good reasons for putting the project on hold
for a while, including that the work material (archival boxes and
acid-free papers) had not arrived. We are also planning to redesign
the project slightly, probably with more focus on digital scanning
of the unique UFO report collection. Our original plan was to employ
two out-of-work persons, for which we would get a good monetary
compensation (badly needed).
Today's updates here concern the Projects page where we report on two work-trainees who have been with us for a few months and now left us, and the Recent donations page, where we report on another major donation from the family of a deceased Swedish ufologist. |
||
| August 18 |
A day spent
100 % on AFU work. I started the day with crediting, here, a great
donation of (primarily) vintage UFO magazines from Jens A. Tellefsen.
Find the credit
on Recent donations.
The day continued with work of integrating the Jan Ove Sundberg collection with our master files. The work includes a lot of copying since there is a wish to also preserve Sundberg's original material separate from the master files. I tried to reach my contact with the Arbetsförmedlingen - the government's unemployment agency - to start up our new project with the reports master file. No result by phone - will write an email! They obviously have a heavy workload with all their customers (people who have lost their jobs). After that, off to the archives, today with six other souls working: Sven-Olov, Anci, Sandra, Ingrid, Lena and Yvonne. The two latter ladies have started on an index for the great APRO Bulletin. Anyone who can supply us with copies or scans of the very first issues, please contact me... Spent an hour of the afternoon on fetching the most recent parcel (18 kilos!) with Norwegian archival materials from Ole Jonny Braenne, from the post office across town. The books, magazines & organization papers come from four Norwegian sources: Petter Lorentzen, Finn Kalvik, Odd-Gunnar Røed and (of course) Ole Jonny himself. |
||
| August 17 | I spent this afternoon and evening sorting out materials from the Jan Ove Sundberg collections which have been bought, in batches, by AFU during recent years. The material I concentrated on this evening was the submarine-USO reports collected by Jan Ove. The most valuable & unique part - his direct interviews with USO and USO-diver witnesses, will be preserved in a file folder of its own, while the newspaper & magazine clippings probably will be integrated with our (rather huge!) previous master files of such submarine-related clippings. | ||
| August 14 |
A day well spent on a summer trip
along the Göta Kanal, a channel that runs across Sweden, from the
east to the west. 58.000 soldiers spent 22 years in the early 19th
century building the channel. Almost 900 kilometers were dug by hand
or blasted. I tried to imagine just how all the millions of stones
that cover the sides of the channel got there? But new times have
come to the channel, including sailing-boats, tourists, and also
graffiti (see picture). Thank you Kicki, Magnus and family for
the great Christmas gift!
|
||
| August 13 |
Daily life goes on at the archives
with new input and impressions, researchers and requests for
information. During the summer season we have more visiting
researchers than otherwise (...and some people who are just
curious). This summer has been no exception. Erik Östling, one of
the university students/researchers who uses AFU, has spent four
days at the archives, drawing on our resources. He has scanned and
photo-copied a large number of documents, clippings and other files.
View our report on Recent visitors.
|
||
| August 8 | Our sponsor Bertil Lindqvist came from Stockholm to spend six-seven hours at the archives, looking through Swedish UFO case files and listening to taped interviews on ghost rockets and close encounter cases. For a report on three books donated by Bertil please view our Recent donations page. | ||
| July 12 |
I am today trying to finish off a
month-long period, of my annual summer vacation, when I have
concentrated on updating the AFU/UFO-Sweden report archives.
A lot of new material has come in from some 15-20 Swedish sources
since the last major update that I can remember (about 10 years
ago!). This work, which should be ongoing every day, has been put
aside because AFU's focus, since roughly year 2000, has been on
"melting" new donations/collections into the book library and
magazine repository. The latest book-magazine collection to arrive
here, on July 1, was the Perry Petrakis (SOS-OVNI) book collection,
which had been in store with SCEAU in Paris since early 2006.
It is expected that up to 11 % of the working population in Sweden may be out-of-work within the coming year and this is where we may play a part with a new project, centered on the report archives, that I have been preparing. More on that on our Projects page. A donation of a quite unique book by a donor from the Netherlands is noted on Recent donations. Also two other major donations from the UK and Sweden, credited today. A little belated but "better late than never".... |
||
| May 11 | Another box with archival items arrived from Marseille in France - it is credited today on Recent donations. | ||
| May 10 | Today's accomplishment is that I finally got the inventory of the recent Bord magazine collection up here for download. You can find the PDF of this list on the Magazine collection page, second item in the menu on the right. What a terrific collection of forteana this is! | ||
| May 5 | Tonight's updates concern two new European books added to the AFU library. One from Spain and the other one from Finland - this one being a doctoral thesis. Find them both credited on Recent new books. | ||
| April 21 | A note, see Recent acquisitions, on a new collection we have just bought from a ufologist in the UK - more to come on this! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the collection for this! | ||
| April 13 | A new French book reporting on a local UFO hot spot area in the south-west of France is reviewed on Recent books after we have received a review copy, via UFO-Sweden. | ||
| April 9 | Another donation - this time from Sweden - is credited today on the Recent donations page. | ||
| April 7 |
Just like yesterday, I spent another
three-four hours at the archives tonight, inventorying the most
recent gifts. Tonight a huge donation of Fate Magazines was the
object of my special interest. It turns out we now only lack about a
handful of issues of this old-timer, which has covered the field of
ufology since the early days of Kenneth Arnold.
On Recent donations you will find yet another note of credit - there will be a lot of this stuff during the coming weeks, as I try to work my way through the excellent archival materials brought here on March 20! |
||
| April 6 | Another donation from Ohio credited on Recent donations. | ||
| April 5 | We are now focusing on taking care of all the donations brought here on March 20. The list includes about a dozen donations of which the first two are now credited on our Recent donations page where there is also a link to a PDF list of one major donation of 435 UFO-related magazines. More to follow! | ||
| March 15 | Sunday evening and another weekend spent on AFU work. You can read about the results of caring for a unique US clipping collection on Recent donations. Several scanning projects for international researcher's going on right now. We do have a steady flow of questions asked through e-mails! | ||
| February 8 |
Two new work trainees will start with
us tomorrow and I have used part of the day to prepare their work.
Collected three different Access files together, forming a 12.600
records database of articles in UFO magazines from different
countries (USA, UK, Spain, Norway and Sweden). The two new
co-workers will continue the work on this database with new titles
and also with new volumes of previously coded magazines and
journals.
A new Spanish book received, is presented on our Recent new books page for 2009. |
||
| February 2 |
Searched the Magazine files today, to
establish what issues that were missing of the old Merseyside UFO
Research Group Bulletin, Merseyside UFO Bulletin and the Spanish
Cuadernos de Ufologia. In two separate deals we are
buying/exchanging copies of these valuable publications. We are
always on the lookout for donations-exchanges-acquisitions that can
enrich and complete the collections.
Having a good copier at an archives institution is absolutely essential. Our old one has now become a pensioner! Read the happy story of how we got a donation for our new copier on the Projects page! |
||
| February 1 |
January was a 'lost' month, at least
concerning the AFU web (but not concerning AFU work in general!). To
the extent that I have had the time, due to the regular work, work
has proceeded on getting a good order to the AFU library collection.
Our librarian is cataloguing the final parts of the Caulfield book
collection. Many evenings and a full few days I have spent planning
and carrying books around between the bookcases. Shelf space is
always critical. I think I have moved some of the books possibly
twenty times since we took over the library 28 years ago! After one,
two or three years there usually are new donations that fill out the
empty places on our shelves and we have to do slight removals. We
need an IKEA sponsorship! :-)
Yesterday, I uploaded the new AFU Serials inventory, now available from the Magazine Collection page. I have also added a new surprise donation on Recent donations (a new page for 2009 started). |
||
| Home |
| Updates 2002-2008 |