The Whole Earth Catalog Now Online

Between 1968 and 1972, Stew­art Brand pub­lished The Whole Earth Cat­a­log. For Kevin Kel­ly, the Cat­a­log was essen­tial­ly “a paper-based data­base offer­ing thou­sands of hacks, tips, tools, sug­ges­tions, and pos­si­bil­i­ties for opti­miz­ing your life.” For Steve Jobs, it was a “Bible” of his gen­er­a­tion, a kind of Google 35 years before Google came along. (On a side note, I high­ly rec­om­mend the com­mence­ment speech where Jobs made those com­ments.) The very good news is that The Whole Earth Cat­a­log and some relat­ed pub­li­ca­tions are now avail­able online. You can read them for free, or down­load them for a fee. Start delv­ing into things here.

While we’re on this sub­ject, I should also high­light a project that has more recent­ly occu­pied Stew­art Brand’s time.  The Sem­i­nars About Long Term Think­ing is a month­ly speak­ing series host­ed by Brand and orga­nized by the Long Now Foun­da­tion, which hopes to pro­vide a coun­ter­point to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and to pro­mote “slower/better” think­ing. You can access the thought-pro­vok­ing sem­i­nars as a pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) and oth­er­wise find it host­ed in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion. Have a good week­end.

via Boing Boing


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Comments (27)
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  • “In the begin­ning, Stew­art Brand cre­at­ed the Whole Earth Cat­a­log. And the earth was with­out the web, google or blog­ging (which the Whole Earth Cat­a­log is cred­it­ed with inspir­ing). Steve Jobs described it as “an amaz­ing pub­li­ca­tion… one of the bibles of my gen­er­a­tion… It was sort of like Google in paper­back form, 35 years before Google came along: it was ide­al­is­tic, and over­flow­ing with neat tools and great notions”. ” Emma Ridge­way on Arts & Ecol­o­gy blog at http://mtblog.typepad.com/arts_ecology

  • […] The Whole Earth Cat­a­log Now Online […]

  • […] fool­ish,” a line from The Whole Earth Cat­a­log, the Bible of Steve Jobs’ gen­er­a­tion, which became freely avail­able online back in 2009… […]

  • […] Kel­ly, the co-founder of Wired mag­a­zine and for­mer editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Cat­a­log (now free online), pub­lished a new book this past Octo­ber: What Tech­nol­o­gy Wants. Review­ing his own book on […]

  • alvin aguirre says:

    in the cold war days and no pc’s the cat­a­log became the guardian of tech­nol­o­gy.

  • […] Kel­ly, the co-founder of Wired mag­a­zine and for­mer editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Cat­a­log (now free online), pub­lished a new book this past Octo­ber: What Tech­nol­o­gy Wants. Review­ing his own book on […]

  • […] Kel­ly, web-pio­neer, co-founder of Wired Mag­a­zine, for­mer edi­tor of the Whole Earth Cat­a­log, and one of the best all-around liv­ing argu­ments for ditch­ing col­lege and trav­el­ing the world […]

  • Mike Gerald says:

    I am seek­ing to obtain a copy of an arti­cle in WEC writ­ten by note­wor­thy playright Ken Kesey about a vis­it to the
    Sutro Tun­nel Saloon in Neva­da. It was sup­pos­ed­ly in the “first sup­ple­ment” to
    WEC but I don’t see sup­ple­ments list­ed as
    that, and per­haps it is includ­ed in #1050
    with the Kesey bus race bits? I would be
    very grate­ful to obtain such a copy.
    Mike Ger­ald

  • Won­der­ing what the whole earth cat­a­log is about but I am inter­est­ed in the hacks, tips, tools, sug­ges­tions and pos­si­bil­i­ties for opti­miz­ing life.
    david vin­cent.

  • it sup­port sur­rey…

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    […]The Whole Earth Cat­a­log Now Online | Open Cul­ture[…]…

  • Connie Cook says:

    I have a 1972 edi­tion of the Last Whole Earth Cat­a­log. It is in very very good con­di­tion. If any­one is inter­est­ed in the cat­a­log please feel free to con­tact me through e‑mail. It is the most inter­est­ing cat­a­log ever pub­lished. Steve Jobs was right it was the Google of our time.

  • I would be very grate­ful, if you could (where pos­si­ble) kind­ly send me either a hard copy or elec­tron­ic copy of the Whole Earth Cat­a­logue.

    I could be reached, by posts, at the address:

    Assoc. Prof. P. Tar­powah Kear, Jr.
    Pro­fes­sion­al Offi­cer for Phar­ma­cy
    Dept. of Human Resources for Health Devel­op­ment
    West African Health Organ­sa­tion (WAHO)
    175 Ave. Ouezzin Coulibaly
    01 BP 153 BOBO-DIOULASSO 01
    Burk­i­na Faso

  • Harlan Howard says:

    Im fas­ci­nat­ed with what it con­tains please send elec­tron­ic copy

  • Kathryn Rose Emerson says:

    I am going to try to start a Habi­tat for Salt Spring Island org. I need the Whole Earth Cat­a­log in it’s entire­ty, how can I get copies of this or is it on disk or can I down­load all pub­li­ca­tions. Please help if you can. Kathryn Rose Emer­son

  • Ben Klein says:

    Hi. I won­der if Ken Kesey’s piece enti­tled the Great Bus Race (May 1974) is avail­able on line? If not, the rel­e­vant page num­bers would be use­ful.

    Thanks,
    Ben Klein

  • Wesley Drollinger says:

    Back in the 70’s, I used a Whole Earth Cat­a­log to build a geo­des­ic dome out of 2x4’s. Any chance of your know­ing where I might find the arti­cle? Thanks, WesD (wes_jean@comcast.net) 509.533.6891

  • Wesley Drollinger says:

    Back in the 70’s, I used a Whole Earth Cat­a­log to build a geo­des­ic dome out of 2x4’s. Any chance of your know­ing where I might find the arti­cle? Thanks, WesD 509.533.6891

  • Scott Lahti says:

    And don’t miss, on the low­er right cor­ner of page 310 (312 on the tool­bar; zoom till you see “How to Need a Cat­a­log”)

    https://archive.org/details/B‑001–013-719/page/n311/mode/2up

    https://ia801609.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/10/items/B‑001–013-719/B‑001–013-719_jp2.zip&file=B‑001–013-719_jp2/B‑001–013-719_0311.jp2&scale=1&rotate=0

    of The Last Whole Earth Cat­a­log from 1971, the cult-clas­sic “Wid­ow Woman Let­ter” intro­duced with­in by edi­tor Stew­art Brand:

    Wen­dell Berry says this let­ter is a fugue, it’s a real let­ter writ­ten by a man who says what he means. It came to us through Gur­ney Nor­man. — SB

    From the intro­duc­tion by the Ken­tucky writer Gur­ney Nor­man (Divine Right’s Trip, &c.) to the ver­sion pub­lished ear­li­er in the Bay area alter­na­tive paper The Free You (Mid­penin­su­la Free Uni­ver­si­ty), Vol. 3, No. 1, Jan­u­ary 1969

    http://midpeninsulafreeu.com/images/82.pdf

    http://midpeninsulafreeu.com/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midpeninsula_Free_University

    Editor’s note: this is an actu­al let­ter sent some years ago to a movie-star mag­a­zine in New York by a man in a men­tal hos­pi­tal in a south­west­ern state. It has not been edit­ed, except to leave out the man’s name and address. G.N.

  • Prajna says:

    I was lis­ten­ing to Steve Job’s Stand­ford com­mence­ment speech where in he men­tioned about the Last Whole Earth Cat­a­log hence I want­ed to read them

  • Mary says:

    Has the web­site domain dis­ap­peared?

    I just tried click­ing on these links…
    The very good news is that The Whole Earth Cat­a­log and some relat­ed pub­li­ca­tions are now avail­able online. You can read them for free, or down­load them for a fee. Start delv­ing into things here.
    …and error mes­sages appeared

    We had a copy of the Whole Earth cat­a­logue in the 70s and I’d real­ly like to read it again online.

    Thanks

  • Mary says:

    Parse error: syn­tax error, unex­pect­ed ‘new’ (T_NEW) in /nfs/c02/h04/mnt/28620/domains/wholeearth.com/html/includes/public-config.php on line 12

  • Maciek says:

    Dear Con­nie, in spite of 11 years that have passed since your post, I would real­ly like to ask you to share a copy of the Whole Earth Cat­a­log with me in any read­able form. Thank you very much, Maciek.

  • Amy Craig says:

    Link no longer avail­able

  • Amy says:

    If any­one has this link,please share!! Would love to dig into these!

  • Danilo del Mundo says:

    I’m inter­est­ed with the said copy.

    Can I obtain it? Please let me know what you require to reach me in the Philip­pines.

    Thank you,
    Dan­ny del Mun­do
    Mani­la, Philip­pines

  • Plénitude Miankodila Luzolo says:

    I’need to have the whole earth cat­a­logue 1974 édi­tion

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