An Introduction to the 356 Literature Zentrale
As a 50+ year collector of Porsche literature, I have often wished that the 356 Registry had more original Porsche content on the website. I was encouraged when the new website was launched and was happy to contribute some manuals and other items in that effort. A primary reason I ran for Trustee was a desire to expand the scope of what is available to members. My push in that direction has been rewarded by the overwhelming support of the Trustees, Brett Johnson and members who have shared from their collections. I have discovered that Brett has shared my desire for more content and has been a great partner in this effort.
As we progress with this project, named “356 Literature Zentrale” (which means Literature Headquarters), we will expand our efforts to new areas such as Service Bulletins, Owner’s Manuals, Sales literature, etc. and will put out a call for help in locating certain items in those categories. We will be publishing a “Wants” list periodically, listing literature pieces that would add to areas that we are currently focusing on.
For the launch on July 1, we have a nice selection of Sales and Service Documents for your enjoyment. This is just a start as we have more scans and are seeking many more documents to add in the future. Please take a look in your personal literature collection to see if you have any of the items on our wants list or items that you feel would be important for this project. If you do, we would appreciate it if you would either consider sending those items to me for scanning or arrange to have them scanned. We have had good success with members sending their items, fully insured, to me. I then scan them and return them fully insured with a check to reimburse them for their costs in shipping.
As a side note, the process we have been following is that I scan items from both my collection and from loaned items from members, then Brett reviews and improves the quality of the scans. Brett and I write introductory text for each section. Lori Schutz creates PDFs and archives the files, then develops the web pages and loads the files/images. She also keeps us on track by organizing meetings, pushing us on deadlines, and handling the marketing/publicity tasks for the website homepage and the 356 Connection.
On behalf of the team, I hope that you enjoy browsing through this growing library of original Porsche documents and that you will join in the effort to expand it.
Jim Wayman
PS - As Literature collectors know, the factory produced many print runs of documents like the color charts. We may show only one example of each variation on the web pages, but you will be pleased to know that we are archiving all variations and print dates that we can. If someone is interested in seeing a particular item that is not on the website, please contact me and I will share it with you if we have it in our archive.