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67.
BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN (Menlo Park, CA: Portola Institute, Winter 1970).
Sm. folio. Wrps., 96pp. Newsprint pages, illustrated throughout. Ed. Sam Yanes. Mandala cover design by Ron Cooper.
Intended for teachers and parents and subtitled 'Resources for Our Education', Big Rock Candy Mountain billed itself as "A Learning to Learn Catalog", directly inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog. It shared the same publisher and borrowed its format, but featured more in-depth articles (like the WEC it also aimed to establish networks to encourage user feedback). The intention was for it to appear twice a year, with four smaller supplements, though it's not known if these actually appeared (the first issue was published in Summer 1970, so this issue would seem to be the second).
Like the Whole Earth Catalog, its content is divided into sections, among them 'Process Learning', 'Educational Environments', and 'Self Discovery', each one listing books, educational tools and other products, along with details of their availability (some of them, unlike the Whole Earth Catalog, were sold directly by BRCM mail order).
The nonprofit Portola Institute was founded in Menlo Park in 1966 by Dick Raymond, Bob Albrecht and others as an educational forum and helped develop a number of influential Bay Area organisations and publications, including Albrecht's People's Computer Company, the Whole Earth Catalog and Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Neat repair to upper wrapper (with some attendant discolouration), o/w Very Good.
