LOW-TECH MAGAZINE

The Printed Website: Second Volume Out Now

The printed version of Low-tech Magazine can be viewed with no access to a computer or a power supply -- or when the solar powered website is down due to bad weather.

The second volume of the printed website is out now and contains 32 articles originally published between 2007 and 2012. The book, which has 618 pages and 268 images, is for sale in the Lulu Bookstore.

Whereas the first volume contained all but a handful of web articles published between 2012 and 2018, this second volume features a third of the web articles published in the earlier years, carefully selected for their continued relevance and interest today. Overall, we wanted to make an attractive book with timeless articles rather than an exact copy of the website.

Low-tech Magazine: The Printed Website

After 12 years, Low-tech Magazine finally makes the jump from web to paper.

The first result is a 710-page perfect-bound paperback which is printed on demand and contains 37 of the most recent articles from the website (2012 to 2018).

A second volume, collecting articles published between 2007 and 2011, will appear later this year.

UNESCO sets up Traditional Knowledge Database

The freshly launched "International Traditional Knowledge Institute" (ITKI) is an ambitious effort to preserve, restore and promote the re-use of traditional skills and inventions from all over the world. It includes an online encyclopaedia of low-tech know-how, though it will take many years before it is completed.

How to make everything yourself - online low-tech resources

Energy Bulletin pointed us to the website of Practical Action (previously known as the Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development), an online resource devoted to low-technology solutions for developing countries. The site hosts many manuals that can also be of interest for low-tech DIYers in the developed world. They cover energy, agriculture, food processing, construction and manufacturing, just to name some important categories.

We would like to add to this the impressive online library put together by software engineer Alex Weir. The 900 documents listed here (13 gigabytes in total) are not as well organised and presented as those of Practical Action, but there is a wealth of information that is not found anywhere else. The library is also hosted here (without search engine).

Other interesting online resources that offer manuals and instructions are Appropedia and Howtopedia. These are all wiki's, so you can cooperate. The Centre for Alternative technologies has many interesting manuals, too, but the majority of those are not for free.

Related: How to make everything ourselves: open modular hardware / The museum of old techniques / Online knotting reference books / UNESCO sets up Traditional Knowledge Database / Primitive technology handbook / Green Wizard Forums / Compendium of Useful Information.

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A do-it-ourselves guide

Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew have written a book that reads as a practical interpretation of Low-tech Magazine: “Toolbox for sustainable city living, a do-it-ourselves guide”.

Both authors regard the current ecotech trend as a salve for guilty consciences and focus instead on low-tech systems and solutions that can be built and maintained by people without any scientific or engineering background, using cheap, salvaged and recycled materials.

How to depave a roadway and reclaim the land for food production? How to clean contaminated soils and water bodies? How to recycle wastewater in a scavenged bathtub? How to raise turkey, ducks, insects and fish? How to cultivate mushrooms on logs? How to build a windmill or a rocket stove? The book provides a toolbox of skills, technologies, tactics and step-by-step instructions to give city dwellers access to, and control over, life’s necessities.

Publisher South End Press has granted Low-tech Magazine permission to publish an excerpt of the book online. It gives detailed instructions on how to build a floating trash island, a low-tech way to clean up rivers, canals, lakes and estuaries. Related: How to make everything yourself / How to make your own low-tech vertical farm / How to tie the world together: online knotting reference books.

Invention & Technology Magazine

Low-tech Magazine will take some time off during summer, but this does not mean we will leave you without anything to read. The online archives of Invention & Technology Magazine (1985-2007) should keep you busy for quite some time (thanks a lot for the tip, David). This spin-off of American Heritage Magazine is dedicated to the history of technology. Very recommended.

Update December 2011: the archives have vanished.

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