“WishbookWeb 2.0” is Almost Here!!!

Welcome to the soon-to-be-relaunched WishbookWeb.com, or as I’ve been calling it “WishbookWeb 2.0”.  The last couple of months, over one hundred hours of work and processing time have been put into the conversion of the existing catalog content into a new format that will make the catalogs fully text-searchable and mobile-friendly.  This is a huge change and should stand as a launch point for bringing WishbookWeb.com into the modern era, while also inspiring and motivating us to add significantly more vintage catalog content to the site.  We think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and we hope your experience with the new site will be that as well.

The goal has always to make the catalogs freely available to everyone online, and to make them accessible to the most amount of people.  These significant changes serve as a generational upgrade that will make WishbookWeb far more accessible than it has ever been and with the addition of text-search capabiliy, their use should provide far more utility.

That’s it for now.  We are still working on the details to have the site fully back.  Can’t wait to share it with you!

23 Replies to ““WishbookWeb 2.0” is Almost Here!!!”

  1. Look forward to checking out the new site once it’s up. Based on what you had on the old site I know I won’t be
    disappointed, for the memories it brought back are priceless.

    1. That’s very kind of you to say. I’m excited to get the initial relaunch done. I think we’ll be up and accessible within 24-hours. I still have many hours of work to do, but I’m at the finish line. 🙂

  2. As an historian of children and childhood in the Cold War era, this site is both an invaluable resource and guilty, nostalgic pleasure.

    1. I’ve put in about 70 hours over the last few weeks. I’m working on it as fast as I can. I think I will be launching in the next 24-hours. But there will be many things that will be tweaked, adjusted or downright changed in the weeks that follow the relaunch. My feeling is that I want to get the new version out into the world, and that if there are some rough edges, at least people will have access to the catalogs and will be able to play with the new format. So, I’m choosing “soon” over “perfect”, because I also want it back soon for the reason you state and so many more reasons. 🙂

  3. Jason, I just started flipping through the catalogs and what an amazing job you did! Thanks for taking the time to take on this project. Being an art director and designer, I have an idea of the challenges you’ve probably have to deal with in getting everything to work as well as it is. Fantastic job!

    1. Thanks, Matt!

      Very glad to hear you’ve had a good experience with it. For me, this is long-overdue and it’s deeply satisfying to be at this point. It’s so fun to consider how to make the site even better now going forward, and to grow the archive (I’ve got a couple dozen catalogs yet-to-be-scanned), rather than to just have the idea of the relaunch and conversion to the new format as an unfulfilled task still ahead of me. For a long time it was just that. I feel very optimistic about what comes next, and I appreciate your encouragement and kind words as we head there.

  4. I have been waiting for this for months!! I was so sad when the site closed before. This information is invaluable to toy collectors like me, you have no idea 🙂 Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    1. Thank you Katherine, that’s very kind of you to say. Knowing that you’ve found such utility within the archive means the world to me, so it’s very nice to hear. I’m hopeful that the newly-added text search feature proves to make the site even more useful in that regard. It’s not a sophisticated search (and you cannot universally search ALL of the catalogs in a single go – it’s just one catalog at a time), but it has allowed me to find mentions of things I could have easily missed before. It should make WishbookWeb.com into a far more useful tool for research.

      And as I’ve already stated, I’ve got a backlog of currently unscanned catalogs that I will be adding to the site over the course of the year. It’s going to be fun!

  5. I love this site!! I’ve been browsing this site for a few years and was surprise to see a new update. I love love LOVE this! I have it bookmarked! lol

  6. Wishbook is an indispensable resource to all vintage collectors, especially toy and doll collectors. I have used it to identify many dolls and “clip” the pages to prove authenticity. Thank you for the work you are doing.

    1. Thanks, Maria! I hope the text-search feature makes this even easier to use and more helpful. 🙂

      -Jason

  7. This is one of my most favorite sites on the whole web! Love seeing all the toys I had when I was young. Having some trouble getting the pics to show up +/or clearing up but once those issues ate fixed this new site will be “the cat’s pajamas”!

    1. Mike,

      I’m not sure what you mean by “pics to show up” – as in they aren’t loading? I have not seen that issue present itself. Can you explain further?

  8. Thanks for this Wonderful Website ..which prompted allot of old and precious Memories ro surface!!!

  9. As someone who collects these books I’m so ecstatic to see a website like this I’ve spent a lot of time on here looking through the books that bring back such great memories thank you so much!

  10. I just discovered this wonderful site and would love for more people to know about it! I searched for your Facebook page and didn’t find one. I hope you keep this site up forever! Love it!

  11. WOW oh WOW oh WOW!!!
    I found your amazing site by accident and have now spent over 4 hours looking at pages I remember as a child from 1960!! I could not believe that I recognized the front covers — it felt like it was just a few years ago.

    How did you SCAN all of these pages???!! It must have been a HUGE job.

    AND wouldn’t call your site nostalgic — I think it is cultural history. The dresses, tools, and people tell more than a thousand words about the year published.

    Thank you again. From Texas, dave & family

    1. Hi Dave,

      Thanks for the kind words. And yes, it was hundreds and hundreds of hours or scanning. Not for the faint of heart. But worth it for all the joy it creates out in the world. Thank you for the words of encouragement.

      -Jason

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