contributions to the Fall ACTR/ARTC Newsletter

[Richard Sutherland]

Among other things, Kathy Chung recently wrote:

>Also, as a preliminary unofficial notice: the ACTR/ARTC Newsletter is
>exploring ways of going electronic to reduce publication costs and save
>trees.  Internet enabled members of ACTR/ARTC who receive this message are
>invited, nay URGED, to reply to me stating YES or NO whether they would
>like to receive the Newsletter via email.  Your co-operation will help the
>association reduce costs enabling us to better direct our limited funds to
>other needs.
>
>If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please don't hesitate
>to communicate them.  Thank you ALL.
>

OK, Kathy, here's a qualified YES to an electronic version of the
Newsletter. Why qualified? Well, perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I really
prefer having a hard copy of the Newsletter that I can access simply by
reaching for it (I don't think I'd be very successful at reading a novel by
cyber-means either).

Other than that simple preference, there are a couple of other
considerations. One is the amount of space that a Newsletter will occupy on
my hard drive (although I suppose that's negligible, really). The other is
the amount of work you may be creating for yourself. I suspect that you are
going to have to make a number of conversions from whatever binary
word-processing program you are using to ASCII text in order to render the
contents acceptable to transmission by e-mail. With a simple letter, this is
not a problem, but with something as relatively complicated as the
Newsletter (columns, graphics, french, etc.), the editing involved could be
quite taxing of your time & (your not inconsiderable) talents.

Just a word of warning from someone who's been there.

Richard Sutherland
(former editor and chief bottle washer of the ACTR Newsletter)