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Archiver > SOG-UK > 2000-06 > 0961375545


From: Roy Stockdill <>
Subject: [SOG] Balance?
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 20:45:45 -0400


Jeanette Iredale wrote...

>>I would be most upset if I was told that the only way that I could
receive my journals/newsletters would be by e-mail. I currently read
them on the bus, at lunch time and sometimes in front of the TV just
before I fall asleep. I also pass them on to other people to read.
Just because we have internet access shouldn't mean that we have to
give up other types of communication.<<

I ENTIRELY agree. God forbid that journals published on paper should ever
die - but, then, admittedly I have an axe to grind, since I edit one!

No, seriously, though - in my view there will always be a place for
publishing on paper. I have a web page for my own family society, but I
devote hardly any time at all to it since, frankly, web publishing doesn't
interest me that much. I reckon the opportunities for being innovative and
imaginative in layout and design are very limited compared to publishing a
28-page journal on paper (which is what the Journal of One-Name Studies
is). Furthermore, the visual display of a web page is poor compared to
publishing on decent quality paper, since a computer monitor is a low
resolution device and cannot show pictures to anything like the same degree
of quality. This is why the universally-used JPEG images, for instance, are
OK for web publishing but barely acceptable for paper publishing (the
compression causes "lossiness").

As Jeanette says, paper journals can be read anywhere, on the bus, train,
beach, in the office, before the TV, in bed, etc. Somehow, laptops are not
so convenient nor as "user-friendly", nor is there the same pleasure in
e-mail newsletters as there is in journals on paper. Once read, an e-mail
newsletter is junked as outdated and gone, but paper journals can be stored
and read and referred to again and again.

Roy Stockdill
Editor, The Journal of One-Name Studies
The Stockdill Family History Society
Web page:- http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roystock
”Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does he will tell you.
If he does not, why humiliate him?" - Canon Sydney Smith (scholar and
humorist 1771-1845)

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