Re: Post Factory

not to get involved in this post factory thread.

but i'm happy to say i just bought the complete collection.

On Sep 20, 2005, at 3:15 AM, Judy Seigel wrote:

>
> 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 10:11:53 2005