Annual Report (2002)
ARLIS/NA Update Editor

Linda Zieper
lzieper@umassd.edu
phone: 508-999-8526
fax: 508-999-9240 

The format of Update continues to be a concern for the editor, the Publications Committee and the Executive Board.  This year, the format remained what was agreed to at the 2001 meeting of the Publications Committee: a lightly formatted HTML file, prepared by the editor and quickly mounted on the AWS by the Web site manager, followed by a two-column version to be printed and mailed to those members and subscribers who requested paper copies.  The editor routinely announces the availability of the Web version on ARLIS-L. This method has evidently proved satisfactory to the membership: the production is much faster than it had been and the editor has had no complaints about access to the Web version. 

According to the report provided by Phil Heagy, treasurer, the costs of preparing and mailing the paper version have dropped steeply; the decision to recover the costs of mailing the newsletter by adding a mailing charge of $10 in 2003 should further decrease the cost of producing and providing Update. The treasurer also authorized the design of a new masthead, incorporating the new ARLIS/NA logo. The February 2003 issue bears the new masthead design, created by Michael Birklein, of  ION Communications.

At the Executive Board meeting in St. Louis, a new format was proposed for Update, using a commercial software package, PWNewsmaker. The board was evidently enthusiastic about this product; however, when the editor spoke with her contact at Clarke Associates and with people from sales and technical support at PWNewsmaker, it became evident to her that this package, which featured e-mail delivery, tracking of readership and the possibility of targeted marketing did not match the expressed wishes of the membership. Additionally, the software’s basic font was a sans serif type, which would diminish the readability of the relatively long articles in Update.  It is possible to reformat text into another font, but not to edit it once it has been reformatted. For these reasons, the Publications Committee agreed not to adopt this software; it did, however, agree to form a subcommittee to investigate other newsletter software packages, if the board felt that was necessary. This committee, Jennifer Hehman, Kathy Corcoran, and Linda Zieper, chair, has not yet taken up this task, but will discuss it at the Baltimore Publications Committee meeting.