The Mobley Library

As part of your NASG membership you have access to contents of the NASG's Library. The purpose of the Russell M. Mobley Memorial Library is to collect, maintain, and provide access to publications including books, magazines, photographs, references, electronic media, and physical artifacts about S-scale and the NASG. NASG members are allowed to borrow library materials or request copies of paper documents and electronic media.

Contact person: Dale Minard

Due to the physical transfer of library materials, we are currently only providing magazine article assistance while we consolidate and relocate all our files, books, records, photographs, etc. to a new location.

Magazines

Our primary goal is to provide a comprehensive collection of modeling magazines that cover S, both past and present. Below is a listing of the magazines we have stocked in our library.

Active Magazines

• NASG Dispatch (from 1978 through present)
• S Scale Resource (from 2014 through present)
• Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette (from 1975 through present)

Past Magazines

• 1:64 Modeling Guide (from 2005 through 2012)
• 3/16 "S"cale Railroading (from 1989 through 1992)
• S Gauge Herald (from 1960 through 1978)
• S Gauge Herald (II) (from 1978 through 2021)
• S Gauge Herald (III) (October 1994; the only issue published)
• S Gaugian (from 1965 through 2019; missing: Jan 1965, Mar 1965, May 1966, Jul 1967, Jul 1969)
• S/Sn3 Buyers Guide (from 1993 through 1994)
• S/Sn3 Modeling Guide (from 1995 through 2004)
• Slim Gauge News (from 1970 through 1974)
• Sn3 Modeler (from 1984 through 2018)

Requesting Magazine Articles

The NASG Dispatch and the S Scale Resource magazines are available digitally and can be freely downloaded.

Articles from other magazines may be requested from the NASG librarian via e-mail (see "Contact Person" link near the top of this page). When you do, please provide the following in your correspondence:

• Your Name
• Your NASG Membership Number (provide this in the subject title of your e-mail - helps us sort out e-mails)
• Magazine Name
• Date of Issue
• Article Title
• Starting Page Number

When you do, the NASG librarian will e-mail you a digital PDF file as an e-mail attachment. This is a free service that the NASG librarian provides, so it is restricted to active NASG members only, and please limit your request to no more than five (5) articles.

Magazine Indexes

As a convenience to you the reader, the NASG Librarian maintains magazine article indexes for nearly all model railroading-related magazines. One contains all magazines, and the other contains only S-related magazines. These are updated from time to time. Note: as is customary with magazine indexes, monthly columns some magazines carry are not included in the indexes. The PDF file versions are sorted by the articles' titles.

• All Magazines (spreadsheet) updated June 2022; ~8MB
• All Magazines (PDF) updated June 2022; ~24MB
• S Magazines (spreadsheet) updated June 2022; ~4MB
• S Magazines (PDF) updated June 2022; ~3MB

Below is a link to a PDF document that shows you how to do simple searches and set up filters using Microsoft Excel, if you have downloaded one of the spreadsheet files from above.

• How to Use Excel

Russell M. Mobley

In 1938, Russ Mobley, born in 1932, promised his mother that he'd stop sucking his thumb if she would buy him a train set. Since that time, Russ has done many things. He started as an A&P bag boy, spent 21 years in the United States Air Force, and drove an 18-wheeler, among other things. He lived in Texas, Ohio, Alaska, and Georgia.

In 1965, when the NASG was only five years old, Russ was designated by General Director Bernie Thomas to manage the round-robin letter "circuits". Upon Bernie's sudden death a month later, Russ became the third General Director of the NASG. Russ served until 1970, when Ed Schumacher took over. Since then, Russ had been a tireless NASG booster, introducing S-scale to kids, developing and marketing "Amity Star" kits, and promoting S at many different venues.

Russ was profiled in the Augusta Chronicle/Augusta Herald (Georgia), Sunday, Nov. 7, 1982, in the Nov. 1982 issue of Rural Georgia, the official publication of Georgia Electric Membership Corp., and in the Oct. 1994 issue of S/Sn3 Buyers' Guide. Some information about Russ can be found in the October 2001 issue of the Dispatch, starting on page 40.

Russ died in 2001. In his honor, the Russell M. Mobley Memorial Library was established in September 2001, with Dick Karnes as its first Librarian. Michael Greene took over the position in 2011, and Dale Minard took over the position in 2020.