Dear Friends,
Like Wolfgang I have kept my directories going all the way back. Like
him and Bill Walker and so many others I annotate them. Like Ray
Smith I use them when traveling.
A redesign of the directory to eliminate much of the white space
could reduce the size and cost by10% to 30%, depending on how much we
are willing to compromise its appearance. I also wonder if we need to
repeat six pages of Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws in every
issue. I do think most of the rest of the frontmatter should remain,
though it could take a lot less space.
Brian Loar's good letter on print-on-demand certainly deserves
consideration. If there are only, say, fifty of us willing to pay an
extra ten or twenty dollars for a directory, that would be a fine
solution. I have seen some of this technology in action, and it is
amazing.
Ray Smith's suggestion that the directories be distributed at the
conferences also is apt. I imagine the board has exhaustively
examined the relative costs of printing and mailing in both Canada
and the US (with its punitive new overseas policies that eliminate
all surface mail, even to Canada and Mexico).
If a printable version on the website really is the only alternative,
it needs to be designed so anyone with any equipment can print out a
decent-looking, functional copy that approximates a printed version
and is not hundreds of single-sided pages long. It should come with
exact instructions for printing on both sides, and it should have a
gutter sufficient to allow for binding at a neighborhood copy shop.
The extraordinarily useful geographical and institutional indexes
must be maintained as printable pages, not limited just to search
functions.
Many thanks to the board for dealing with this and so many other
difficult questions.
Best regards,
Laurence McGilvery
--
Laurence McGilvery
Member, Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America
Post Office Box 852
La Jolla, California 92038
USA
(858) 454-4443
[log in to unmask]
www.mcgilvery.com
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
For information about joining ARLIS/NA see:
http://www.arlisna.org/join.html
Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]
