How large is your military history reading collection? How much material do you have in your wargaming library? Well, not to brag – OK, to brag just a bit – my collection on these genres amounts to over 121 magazines. That’s over 40,000 articles I have at my fingertips, articles with information covering some 5,000 years of military history!

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You say that’s incredible, maybe unbelievable? Incredible, yes, but not unbelievable. You see, that’s what you get with a subscription to MagWeb.com (www.magweb.com), the online archive of military history and related magazines. While my guest reviewer subscription was only temporary during August, it was damn well worth it. If you don’t have a subscription, you should.

Pick up any military history-related magazine I know of and you’re sure to see their unique full-page ad (e.g., Armchair General, September 2004, page 21). The ad just conveys the caliber of information they have available, but in no way does it cover the immensity of said info. I was blessed to peruse the site for almost four full weeks, and I yet did not click my way into every hyperlinked article. I imagine one would need to sign on with a 12-month membership in order to at least see all MagWeb has to offer. But, with the website team scanning an additional 25 (!) magazines per month into the site’s archive database, maybe that’s still not enough time.

Just in case you are unfamiliar with MagWeb, an overview is in order. “MagWeb.com is an on-line archive of military history and related magazines, started in 1996,” says Russ Lockwood, MagWeb’s CEO and Chief Historian. At regularly scheduled intervals, Lockwood and his team scan entire magazines, article by article, into the database and onto the website. Visitors to the website may then access those articles with a subscription for a week up to a year, or they may look over about 100 free sample articles and / or skim through the free ‘inside the archive tour.’

As vast as the information on the site is, it is not complete. Not every issue from every military/history related magazine is in here. Best to at least give it a try before deciding on a paid subscription, but my guess is that’ll be what you end up doing.

Not only can you search and find new information on topics covering military history, wargaming, D&D, Sci-Fi, and other fantasy games, you’ll also find magazines and articles on miniatures, historical fiction and non-fiction, and historical sites and battlefields. Just take a look at the front page and you’ll begin to see what I mean.

Furthermore, not only will you be able to find all this info, you’ll get to keep it, too! MagWeb members get the privilege of saving and printing any article they find here, as long as it’s for personal use only, of course. According the handy Help Manual on the website, “We have priced MagWeb so that everyone can enjoy a membership, and the royalties paid to the magazines assist them in continuing to publish. ‘Nuff said. Thank you.”

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