Trying to keep track of published material relating to Northern Pennine Club explorations is a librarian's nightmare, partly due to the variety of different publications that have been produced and partly due the Pennine habit of changing the designation of their publications some time later. No doubt putting things on the World Wide Web will just add to the confusion as various things acquire yet another designation in the form of a URL, and possibly an ISSN (different from the one on the printed Journal) !

The earliest publication of which knowledge still persists is "The Caverns of Upper Ease Gill", published in March 1952 as a 'Northern Pennine Club Publication', and reprinted (on paper) in 1987.

The next publications were a series of duplicated "Northern Pennine Club Circulars", of which seventeen are known. None of this material is on the web site.

These were supplanted by things titled "Northern Pennine Club Newsletter" at the time of first publication in February 1955. Later issues, with Lithoed covers, were subtitled "Journal of the Northern Pennine Club", and the four of these (last one Christmas 1955) were later known as "NPC Journal, volume 1". A small amount of this material is on the website, covering the 1954 explorations in Penyghent Pot, and a note on Gingling Sink.

NPC Journal, volume 2, kicked off with the now famous and highly collectable (judging from the rapidity with which printed copies are stolen) "Black Journal". It rapidly became traditional to refer to these journals by the colour of the cover, rather than any date or volume number.

"The Blue Journal" was Volume 2 number 2, published at Christmas, 1959.

"The Red Journal" was Volume 2 number 3, published in summer 1963.

"The Yellow Journal" was Volume 3 number 1 and was the last of this continuous run of journals, being produced in summer 1967. So far, this is the only journal on the web site to include surveys.

Since the original four newsletters were renamed as volume 1 of the journal, a series of irregular and unnumbered newsletters was being produced starting in 1956. In April 1967, the newsletter announced itself as being number 22. We only have seventeen of the preceding twenty one, with no way of knowing what numbers to put on each, as publication was so irregular. As newsletter 37 put it "Every newsletter carries an excuse for its late arrival". This series lasted up to at least number 40. Hardly any of this material is on the web site as it was almost exclusively made up of ephemeral information and club gossip.

In 1975, material was available for a journal, but was instead made into a rather lower quality interim measure, the "Orange Bulletin". The exploration of Dale Head Pot provided material for a second "White Bulletin" in 1976.

The club's next major exploration was in Link Pot, and the "Link Pot Journal" of 1979 had a yellow cover, the same as the previous journal twelve years earlier. The editor didn't give this a volume number, but the librarian decided that it would be Volume 3 number 2.

In 1982, Large Pot provided material for another yellow-covered journal which the librarian designated Volume 3 number 3, whilst everyone else simply called it the "Large Pot Journal".

The "Notts Pot Journal" was officially labelled Volume 4 number 1, as well as the "Northern Pennine Club Journal, 1987". We should point out that a few copies of this journal, with excellent photos and survey of Notts Pot II, are still available, and can be obtained by contacting the Secretary (see addresses page).

Also not strictly an "out of print publication", a considerable amount of material was accumulated for an "NPC Explorations Journal", which includes several unpublished articles and reports on Stream Passage Pot, Penyghent Pot, Hammer Pot and Gavel. The Explorations Journal has been somewhat superceded by this website, and those articles can all be reached from the Alphabetical or Chronological Indices (see links below).

We are currently hoping for something which may be known as the "Gingling Hole Journal" ... or maybe not.

Two more series of newsletters (the most recent being the second labelled "New Series") came onto the scene over the last two decades, and a tiny amount of material from these will make it onto this web site over the coming months. At present these are best found using the chronological, alphabetical or author index pages.