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Date: 2023-10-29  

I just learned that an old friend, nearly forgotten, has reappeared, in a wonderful way.

From its first publication in the fall of 1968 to its last, 30 years later, The Whole Earth Catalog served as entertainment, life skills instruction, and, as its subtitle stated, “Access to Tools.”

That motto, reflecting founder Stewart Brand’s desire to acquaint seekers with all the tools they might need to build a homestead, keep bees, found a co-op, or explore diverse technologies, made the Catalog not only a must-have for do-it-yourself types of every description, it made the publication highly-addictive brain candy. Steve Jobs once referred to it as, “Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along.”

After its final issue in 1998, copies of the book, once ubiquitous in counter-culture circles, became scarcer, more nostalgic novelties than the useful meta-tools the founder envisioned.

Now, that has changed. In a major way. This month, on the 55th anniversary of the Catalog’s original introduction, Gray Area and the Internet Archive announced that the entire oeuvre of Whole Earth publications, every Catalog, all of Co-Evolution Quarterly and Soft-Tech, will be available online, free, at The Whole Earth Index.

Yup, kit and caboodle. Everything from safely digging a privy to founding a space colony to the entirety of “Divine Right’s Journey,” all in one place for your edification and endless amusement.

“Prospecting” from the 1980 Catalog

I look forward to much educational and fun time-burning ahead. Now if only I could find an online scan of “Be Here Now” and that $10 lid I misplaced back in ‘71...

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