Re: Post Factory

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, Sandy King wrote:

> I hope that eventually all of the issues of Post Factory will be made
> available in .pdf format. Post-Factory was a unique contribution to the
> literature of alternative photography and all of the issues were interesting
> and informative. The material really deserves a wider audience than that of
> the paying subscribers, which I was from beginning to end.

While I certainly appreciate the endorsement (thank you!), I'm blessed if
I can understand why "the material deserves a wider audience than that of
paying subscribers."

Which raises the question (similar to one asked 10 years ago on this
very list when the claim was made "knowledge should be free") of
why folks willing and able to spend, say, $5 plus shipping for a single
blank sheet of paper, that is, paper with nothing on either side, that
they may then proceed to wreck with a technical error or other
miscalculation, wouldn't spend approximately $4.50 + postage for 48 or
more pages covered with information, not mindlessly stamped out by
machine, but assembled painstakingly by others whose time (which they're
not making any more of) is more valuable than a piece of paper.

Or, why do folks deserve NOT to pay for what others did pay for... isn't
information MORE valuable than, say, a latte, or a sheet of ultra deluxe
paper?

And another point. The History of Photography list is doing a thread about
retrieving depth-of-field info from manuals printed ca 125 years ago.
Assuming there is a world with folks who can read, & life not reduced to
subaquatic organisms 125 years into the future, is there a prayer that
today's Internet info would still be readable on those systems? It will
almost certainly be lost, while a pile of National Geographics, or even
Post-Factory's moldering in an attic would be readible, that is, assuming
living creatures can still read, not regressed from global worming.

But keeping the info either way -- in printed form by reformatting
remaining issues for digital reprint OR on website for PDF-- both are very
labor intensive... (Malin worked VERY hard to get #1 in PDF-- thank you
Malin!) Why should that labor be donated free to folks who don't care
enough to spend what is of course far less than the actual cost to
produce? (I, for instance have donated my time free these 6 or so years --
and actuarily speaking I have less of it left than most folks on this
list...) And of course contributors, including Sandy, to both P-F AND the
websites give their labor free...

I don't blame folks for taking what's free, but I don't see why it's owed
them...

Meanwhile -- although having Issue #1 on the alternative photography
website has been a godsend (thank you, Malin!), so far all but one of the
new subscribers who viewed it there, wanted the print version of #1 when
my bricks & mortar printer gets his digital machine re-re-refixed,
although I offered to pro-rate price and postage without it.

But then these folks were actually paying "subscribers."

I'll add that by cosmic coincidence, the same day as Sandy's e-mail, I got
an e-mail from Canada that a pack of issues had arrived (very far north),
adding, "I am so grateful that one can still obtain such a delightful
publication on real paper."

But all these sources, real paper or virtual, are created by minds
contributing knowledge, experience and TIME (which in case I forgot to
mention, they're not making any more of) without pay. Websites in the
field are also, AFAIK, subsidised by labor of the site owner (among
others). And the formal intensive demanding labor of producing either a
website OR a publication in print cannot be compared to casual fragmented
discussion freely given on this list.

(I do however wonder what, for instance, Phil Davis wrote for publication
gratis, while [ironically] reflecting on how much of HIS information is
now obsolete.)

And I assume that approximately 450 pages of closely packed text are NOT
so easily whisked into PDF (Malin worked very hard on just one issue) and
don't see any particular reason to do so....Except of course expectations.
Folks have learned to expect website type information free, though not
sheets of *blank* paper.

I have various problems ... but providing this material in other formats
isn't one of them. However, I do appreciate the compliment, as I daresay
do all contributors. Thank you.

Judy
Received on Tue Sep 20 01:15:23 2005