About

Wishbook Web – The Christmas Catalog Archive Project

WishbookWeb.com first launched in 2006, with the initial scanning project having started a year earlier in 2005.  From the outset, the goal of the WishbookWeb project has been to archive, preserve, and share the wonderful holiday gift catalogs of the past – making them freely-available to anyone with a web browser.  Inspired by the pioneering work of websites like Plaidstallions and MegoMuseum, who had already been sharing select pages of vintage catalogs online, our goal was to build upon that idea by sharing entire volumes, every section and every page.  As you see it now, WishbookWeb represents the product of hundreds of hours of work to create the current archive.

Over the years of its existence, WishbookWeb has served visitors as a nostalgic respite, a collector’s reference, a place to research the past, a source of school projects (thank-you teachers!), and so much more.  Its continued development has always been spurred on and motivated by the visitors to the site.

With the February 2017 relaunch and redesign of WishbookWeb, we are thrilled to make the site universally accessible, now easily viewable on mobile devices.  And with the addition of the text-search feature, the catalogs will serve as an even more useful resource and reference.

Going forward, the plan is to build upon the 2017 relaunch by adding significantly more content to the site (i.e. more Christmas and holiday catalogs from more years) while continuing to tweak and improve the overall experience for visitors. We thank you for joining us on this next phase of development for WishbookWeb.com.  If you have questions or would like to help or contribute to the project, please e-mail us at jason@wishbookweb.com .