009 News in PDF format

[Jeff Schumaker]

Hello,

I recently joined the 009 Society after discovering that the newsletter was being offered in PDF format. The membership rate fit within my budget much better than a mailed to the states printed copy membership. Upon joining, I received three recent PDF issues. I was wondering if any back issues in PDF are available.

Jeff S.

[Alan Feldon]

Haven't seen any announcement in the news regarding this-have i missed it?

[Hobby]

Neither have I, the option of PDF is something several of us have been asking for for several years but was poo-poo'd by those who prefer paper, perhaps they are trialing it?

[Hobby]

Alan, I've just had a look at the 009 Society main page for Membership and it's there!

Interestingly it's under the Outside of the UK section as

[Graeme Dunbar]

Some societies publish their entire back catalogue of newsletters electronically in a members' only section of the web page. Others seem reluctant to do so, often citing author copyright as the reason.

An electronic version would be a great help in searching for articles.

[Alan Feldon]

Thanks I'll drop Alan an E mail

[Doug Dickson]

As a French resident I have taken advantage of this opportunity, the reproduction is excellent. Given my eyesight concerns it is extremely useful to be able to enlarge as needed in a P.D.F. format. Thank you for this service.

Doug

[Russell Brown]

This is very interesting and I hadn't noticed it was available in PDF,  although I do prefer paper copies.  I'm glad this will be an option and if the back issues become available this will be a big bonus  :)

[Graeme Dunbar]

As a French resident I have taken advantage of this opportunity, the reproduction is excellent. Given my eyesight concerns it is extremely useful to be able to enlarge as needed in a P.D.F. format. Thank you for this service.

Doug

That is indeed a bonus. Also changing font (though it is good to see the 009 News uses an easily readable sans serif font), coloured background (though there has been debate recently whether that is of benefit to dyslexics) and text to speech readers.

In the early days of societies storing electronic copies of their publications the quality of images often suffered to keep file size and download time manageable. Even living in a broadband backwater where video streaming is not practical, documents are no problem.

I would still opt for paper copies as I much prefer them. However I have experimented with scanning my own copies (for my own use and not for anyone else I hasten to add). I was pleasantly surprised to find that the PDF which looks like a facsimile is searchable. Clearly Optical Character Recognition is taking place. I found just one or two places where is failed. I've not followed it up because of the time involved and because it seemed pointless unless I can find a way of editing and correcting the OCR.

[Hobby]

At present the PDF subscription is only available to members outside the UK, to offer them a reasonable membership rate versus ever increasing postage costs. I think this should actually be

[B.Meldon]

So that we can all see how good the PDF version is here is an example from October 2013:

http://www.009society.com/october2013.pdf

Brian Meldon

[WALLSHIRTS]

PDF looks fine but I would still prefer a printed copy. However, because I'm in the States I will have to go with the PDF version just to save on the postage. I work in printing so I could probably get this printed at work, but it would take a while to impose all the pages in their correct order. Would it be possible to get a press ready PDF?
Mal.

[Graeme Dunbar]

Another group looked at electronic copy only subscriptions for home members and concluded that the cons outweighed the pros. The economy of scale of printing can be lost resulting in greater differential in the cost of paper v.s. electronic copy and so the situation can snowball. I suspect there is a good deal of 'headology' involved too and once electronic only publication takes place standards standards start to fall as contributors input is seen as some way devalued. There would need to be some other influence to maintain standards. Electronic-only scientific journals have peer review and commercial publications need to maintain standards to retain their customers.

When work is done by volunteers people expect it for free and when it is free people don't value it. The very handsome 009 Society News that comes through my letterbox highlights just how much time and effort goes into producing it.

On the other hand electronic copy for archive and search purposes is very attractive. Having said that, apart from initial curiosity I've not used the electronic copy of Railway Modeller, though I'm not desperate to read it on the daily commute and such. Now it might be a completely different story if I had access to old editions and could read or re-read articles from years past on previous incarnations of the layout or to look up articles that an author cites as influencing the layout in the current edition.

[Hobby]

For Heaven's sake, Graeme, it's only a Society Magazine not the complete works of Shakespeare!! :)

Glad to hear that, Stephen, I hope that they give the option soon.

[Graeme Dunbar]

For Heaven's sake, Graeme, it's only a Society Magazine not the complete works of Shakespeare!! :)

Glad to hear that, Stephen, I hope that they give the option soon.

Did I say it was?

In another group, what was a valuable technical resource used to be published as an appendix to the magazine. Because not all of the information was of interest to all of the members all of the time it was decided to publish it electronically only. Result - authors stopped writing the material.

There is a distinct danger that that if electronic delivery of the 009 News becomes the norm then it makes itself redundant as there are other electronic channels that are equally if not more suitable:

Roving reporter - direct link to photo web site
Branchlines - area group blogs
Trade matters - ditto
Letters - ditto obviously
and so on.

When those elements of the content are lost the 'News' has to rely more on 'features' for content. OK, there may be no Shakespeares writing for the 009 News but the discipline of writing for publication tidies up the writing and the thinking that is often not present in online posts. Additionally a good editor can help authors who are not sure of their work.

If the norm is for the publication to be produced and delivered electronically then potential authors may think "why bother with the middle man?" and instead write for this forum or elsewhere. And then when you are no longer concerned about fitting the constraints of a paper publication there is no incentive to kill your darlings and you end up with stream of consciousness drivel like this!