Brickshelf
 | |
 Screenshot of the home page on February 16, 2025 | |
Type of site | Image hosting service |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Brickshelf II, LLC. |
| Created by | Kevin M. Loch |
| URL | brickshelf |
| Registration | Optional (required to upload files) |
| Launched |
|
| Current status | Online (registration disabled) |
Brickshelf is a LEGO image hosting service created by Kevin Loch in 1999. As of February 2025, Brickshelf contains over 4.9 million files in 430 thousand folders.
History
Kevin Loch, a software engineer from Reston, Virginia,[1][2] started what would become Brickshelf after seeing numerous requests for scans of LEGO building instructions on rec.toys.lego. Loch announced his plans on April 19, 1998, and asked for readers to email him scans of instruction;[3] after receiving its first submission, the website was launched on April 20.[4] The initial version of the site was a basic directory index on Loch's main website, KL.net.[3] On April 22 Loch set up an FTP server users could anonymously upload to as well.[5] By April 23, the website had over 60 megabytes of images and had been viewed by over 200 people.[6] The website only hosted scans from discontinued LEGO sets; at launch, only allowed scans for sets released up through 1995 were publicized.[7]
On August 31, 1999, Loch moved all scans from kl.net/scans to a separate URL, BrickShelf.com.[8] BrickShelf was selected as LUGNET's "Cool LEGO Site of the Week" on February 20, 2000.[9]
Brickshelf reached 100,000 files on February 24, 2002, 250,000 files on March 17, 2003.[10] Brickshelf surpassed one million files on September 22, 2005.[11]
References
- ↑ Bender, Jonathan (2010). LEGO: A Love Story. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 107–108. ISBN 978-0-470-40702-8.
- ↑ "Kevin Loch's Net Server". Archived from the original on November 11, 1998.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Loch, Kevin (April 19, 1998). "instruction scans". Newsgroup: rec.toys.lego. Usenet: [email protected]. Archived from the original on February 16, 2025 – via Google Groups.
- ↑ Loch, Kevin (April 20, 1998). "scan site". Newsgroup: rec.toys.lego. Usenet: [email protected]. Archived from the original on February 19, 2025 – via Google Groups.
- ↑ Loch, Kevin (April 22, 1998). "instruction scans site". Newsgroup: rec.toys.lego. Usenet: [email protected]. Archived from the original on February 19, 2025 – via Google Groups.
- ↑ Loch, Kevin (April 23, 1998). "Re: instruction scan site". Newsgroup: rec.toys.lego. Usenet: [email protected]. Archived from the original on February 19, 2025 – via Google Groups.
- ↑ Loch, Kevin (April 22, 1998). "Re: Everyone Give a Big Thank You to Kevin Loch". Newsgroup: rec.toys.lego. Usenet: [email protected]. Archived from the original on February 19, 2025 – via Google Groups.
- ↑ Loch, Kevin (August 31, 1999). "Scan site is moving!". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.publish. Archived from the original on February 16, 2025.
- ↑ "Cool LEGO Site of the Week – February 20-26, 2000". LUGNET. Archived from the original on September 1, 2000.
- ↑ Eaton, David (September 3, 2004). "Re: Happy Birthday Brickshelf!". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.publish. Archived from the original on February 16, 2025.
- ↑ Sophie, Eric (September 22, 2005). "Brickshelf surpases the 1 million file mark". LUGNET. Newsgroup: lugnet.announce. Archived from the original on February 17, 2025.
