[ Previous | Contents | Next ]
|
Etwas, my first fanzine, was laboriously typed onto stencils, using a manual typewriter and lots of corflu (blue, smelly, correction fluid). Both Robert Bloch and Harry Warner, Jr. had responded to my (typewritten) letters asking for material and I carefully re-typed the material they had mailed to me.
With this experience, watching Michael Nelson create Bucconeer's pre-con publications fills me with a sense of wonder. Surprisingly, not wonder for what "the future" will discover, but for our current technology. [It beats quill pens and foolscap. - Ed.]
Most of the material for our publications is created using word processors, edited and spell checked, then e-mailed to pre.con.pubs@bucconeer.worldcon.org.
Re-typing, typesetting, and manually laying out columns of text are chores which are no longer a significant part of creating these publications. Proofreading, however, is still ignored only at one's pearl.
Some previously time-consuming and tiresome tasks are now relatively easy and routine. The first time I worked on mailing publications to Worldcon members, we each took a part of the membership printout (done on a mainframe's line printer) and hand-wrote the names and addresses on the envelopes. The "experienced staff" rejoiced that there was a clean printout to work from, rather than having to interpret hand-written information on 5 x 7 membership cards.
Years later, the Registrar typed membership information directly onto sheets of labels. These labels were duplicated for the membership cards and for each mailing. We thought we were pretty slick as we placed copied labels onto envelopes, rather than having to hand-write the addresses each time. However, then, as now, fans move from one location to another with astonishing frequency. Every time a member's address changed, that out-dated label had to be crossed off and a new one added to the sheets of labels.
In addition to creating mailing labels for our publications, this year Covert Beach used Visual FoxPro to create and print membership receipts with the data entered into the database system (these receipts had previously been laboriously hand-written).
Since many families prefer to receive only one copy of Worldcon publications (except those containing forms and ballots), we reasoned that the resources saved could make Bucconeer more enjoyable for everyone. Computers and databases, having solved the old problem some years ago, we'd asked Covert to provide a solution for the problem of large costs for printing, volunteer effort, and postage for multiple copies of Bucconeer publications to a household, all but one of which were often discarded. (Attending and supporting members may each have their own copies of all of our publications upon request.)
How strange that much of computer technology
can work so well, and yet many of us save time and patience by "cutting and
pasting" material from a word processor into an e-mail message rather than
risking the random technology of "attachments," which work seamlessly on
some occasions and not at all other times!
I'm curious about what technology will change the way we work (and play) in the next couple of years. Therefore, we've asked John Roberts to organize a Near Future Technology exhibit (with thanks and a tip of the hat to David Medinnus who thought of it first) for Bucconeer. We hope you'll find this exhibit (and many others) fascinating!
|
