"Wargaming Museum" Topic

So I have a very large rule book collection. Many of them are dusty old books from the 70s and 80s. Unfortunately, I am told I can't take them with me.

Besides having my heirs unload them on Ebay or, heavens forbid, toss them in the recycling bin, is there any place they could be donated for "posterity." Does anyone have a museum or archives for our insane little hobby?

Properly glued and sealed,they could make a tasteful "exposed" wall at the Host.

I think that King's College, London may have created a small archive of papers etc about the history of wargaming.

There is a need for a larger archive of wargame-related material, including copies of rules, magazines, figures etc. to be created, but the storage space required would be much bigger than most existing organisations would be able to allocate to it.

Try these guys:

loc.gov/rr/rarebook/?

or these guys:

link

Seriously, why not pass them on to others via the Marketplace?

The History of Wargaming project wargaming.co is interested in this collection of rules

It has a growing archive of wargaming material and the rules are often being preserved in digital form. The project has published 75 books and has much other material available for research.

I am happy to supply further information.

etotheipi, thank you for the USNWC link – I hadn't noticed their glossary before.

Hafen, I think the idea is to keep the collection together. I agree it would be nice to have as complete a collection as possible for people to browse, including the good, the bad and the deadly, but the question would be where to store them and also make them accessible.

If John could provide something, that would be helpful.

I should explain a bit more about the project. It was inspired by Paddy Griffith and has worked with some of the key wargamers of our time e.g Featherstone, terry Wise, George Gush, Stuart Asquith. It aims to document the development of wargaming, hobby and professional See the website for current publications. Wherever possible, the material is made available via publication, or just as a pdf from the website. For material the Project does not have permission to reproduce, this is available for research purposes. This is used about once a month, primarily by professional wargaming, as well as undergraduate and post graduate students. I am a senior academic in games development at Bath Spa University. The intention is the archive will go to a UK university in due course, with its income supporting the cost of the holdings and to pay for new acquisitions.

That sounds good too. We need something like this in the US.

And this thread should also go on the History of Wargaming board. Bill?

Another possibility:

museumofplay.org