Found a treasure trove of old repair manuals at a library in Tacoma

I was visiting the main library in Tacoma last week and stumbled on their special collection room. They had a whole shelf of original service manuals from the 1970s and 80s, things like the Canon AE-1 and the Nikon FM2. I spent about two hours just looking through them, and the detail is amazing compared to some PDFs you find online. The binding on the Nikon F3 manual was falling apart, so I showed the librarian how to use archival tape to fix it. It felt good to help preserve a resource like that. Has anyone else found a good public source for old paper manuals?

3 comments

3 Comments

sagejackson2d ago

Sounds like a waste of paper to me.

lisab322d ago

Nice find. My local library has a few but nothing that good. Might check the university archives next.

murray.pat2d ago

That's cool you helped fix the binding. It reminds me of when I found my grandpa's old toolbox, full of greasy paper guides for lawnmowers from the 50s. The paper felt totally different, thick and oily. I wonder if those old library manuals have that same smell, like old ink and glue. Maybe @lisab32 could check if a university archive has that kind of stuff, the really old physical copies you can't find online. Do you think the feel of the paper actually makes the info easier to understand?