HyMag is a British archive of popular publications based in London. The archive was established by James Hyman, who for over 30 years has been collecting magazines, pamphlets, newsletters, brochures, ephemera and other printed material. The theme of Hyman's collecting is 'popular culture in print'. Originally, he began collecting to assist his research at MTV Europe, where he was a script writer and programme producer. This was in a period where, according to Hyman, "magazines were the internet".
Collection
The Hyman Archive contains over 4,500 individual title publications and over 120,000 individual issues as at April 2017, although the collection is still growing at approximately 30% per annum. The collection spans the period 1850 to the present day. More than 55% of the title publications are not to be found in the British Library. Independent publishers represent 75% of the title publications in The Hyman Archive. Condé Nast and Bauer Media are the two largest contributors to the Archive, representing 3% each of the total title publications. The United Kingdom represents approximately 55% of the title publications by territory, followed by the United States at 34%. The Hyman Archive, although curated and focused on popular culture, includes a broad-array of subject matter, including film, TV, music, music videos, art, fashion, architecture, interior design, trends, youth, lifestyle, women's and men's magazines, technology, sports, photography, counter-culture, graphics, animation, and comics. On 1 August 2012, Guinness World Records verified that "The largest collection of magazines consists of 50,953 magazines and belongs to James Hyman, in London". At that time, the collection had 2,312 unique publications amongst the 50,953 magazines. The process of counting the magazines took approximately 128 days as Hyman and Tory Turk worked their way through 450 crates filled with magazines. In 2018, the Hyman Archive obtained the Hans Tasiemka Archive, a large collection of newspaper and magazine clippings that has been a popular resource with British journalists. The archive was maintained by Hans Tasiemka until his death in 1979. It was then managed by his widow Edda Tasiemka until it was transferred in the year before she too died.
History
In September 2014, with Natalie Chester as investor and her husband Lewis Chester as an advisor, Hyman formed The Hyman Archive Ltd. in order to obtain an ECL with copyright holders contained within the collection, and then to digitise and meta-tag the collection, making it available in a commercial offering. Hyman hoped to have secured an ECL by Spring 2016. The company planned to then begin the process of digitising the collection's approximately 10 million pages. The archive's activity included a unique NME loan to the BBC for its Britannia series, supplying Amazon's pop-up trainer exhibition, the Victoria and Albert Museum's David Bowie Is exhibition, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery's Mods exhibition, "Fashion Galore!" and "The Jam: About The Young Idea", both at Somerset House. The archive was profiled in The New York Times Style section, 24 January 2018, "All Good Magazines Go To Heaven" and Norwegian Air Shuttle's in-flight magazine, N by Norwegian, March 2018.
