Watchtower Newsletters: Kingdom News, Director, Informant

This CD-ROM contains the KINGDOM NEWS, the longest running continuously published periodical, next to The Watchtower itself. What's more, issue #1, released on March 15, 1918, is arguably one of the rarest of all the Society’s publications. After publishing the first three tabloid-size issues in 1918, the Society took a breather until July 1939 when issue #4 appeared as a four–page 9 x 12 newsletter, followed by eleven more similar-size two-page issues from 1939 to 1946. After 1946, the publication took another pause until 1973, when it reemerged as a 4–page 7 x 9 brochure. Because the Watchtower Library disc already contains the Kingdom News since 1973, this disc will serve as its companion by filling in the gap and transporting the researcher all the way back to the beginning of this fascinating newsletter. In addition, this CD-ROM contains the DIRECTOR, which immediately succeeded the Bulletin and served as the predecessor to the Informant. It enjoyed a brief existence from October 1935 to June 1936. As a result, any issue of the Director is extremely rare. It provided “Field Publishers,” with information regarding: organization instructions, new publications, campaigns, statistics, conventions, radio broadcasts, and sound equipment, etc. This disc contains the Director for all nine months, and as an added bonus, it includes the “Special October Issue” and the “January Extra” issue, for a total of eleven exceptionally rare gems. Finally, this disc also contains the INFORMANT, which replaced the Director and served as the predecessor to the modern-day Kingdom Ministry. It ran from July 1936 to August 1956, in two different sizes. Initially, from 1936 to 1950, the issues were the same large 2–page format as the Director (9 x 12). However, some months saw two issues, and periodically, some issues were published with 4 pages. In 1951, the issues were changed to a 4–page (7 x 9) format, which mirrors the current Kingdom Ministry in format, scope and purpose.