Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities By: Saturday working group (teluride) on Sat, Jul 24, '93 11 responses so far Theme: Electronic Publishing Moderator: Judy Malloy Attendees: Spiro Antonopolis, Sherri Johnson, Dave Pierce, Gene Cooper, Andrew Currie, Jean Ann Beckley, Mavis Bennet, Lannie Boyd, Janet Monroe, Atis Jurka, Gary Malet, Lola Triolo, Taylor Barcroft, and Peter Lert Reporter: Dave Pierce Videographer: Taylor Barcroft Summary: The group discussed some of the forms that electronic publishing may take as well as distribution of electronically published material. The discussion then moved to the issues facing this and other rural communities: 11 responses total. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 1: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:29) 14 lines How can the residents here benefit from telecommunications access -- access that permits electronic publishing -- instead of being left behind. What is electronic publishing? Desktop publishing, on-line publishing, on- line distribution, video publishing, disk-based, CD-based? Is ASCII or modified ASCII a solution? What about SGML (standard generalized markup language)? Can we publish in a platform neutral manner w/ quality? The quality of information is assumed, can we also ensure quality of format while providing for the lowest common denominator accessibility? Adobe Acrobat is an electronic publishing solution. Run-time version not available. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 2: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:30) 5 lines Certainly remove all special characters used to produce quality print documents -- em dashes, open and closed quotes, tabs, and so on. Test your document. Import it into other systems. Test sending it to ensure that the complete document is received as intended. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 3: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:30) 5 lines A critical question is "Who is the audience?". What tools (and skills) does the audience have? Electronic publishing does not preclude publishing in more traditional fashions that do not exclude people without access to electronic technology. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 4: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:31) 6 lines Types of electronic publishing -- The simplest form is to send mail to a distribution list. On-line databases are another form of electronic publishing. People logon to the system and retrieve the information ad hoc. This type of access is typically more expensive to the user and cheaper for the publisher. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 5: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:31) 13 lines Leonardo Electronic News and the Fine Arts Forum -- The initial goal was to provide an interim alternative to the print journal (not replacing the print journal, to a wider audience, in a more timely fashion) as well as experiment with alternative means of distribution. Problem with the database publishing, people forgot to logon to retrieve the information. Email reminders were used, but it was found to be just as easy to send the new articles. Database is still in use. Nothing is rejected for publishing in the database. A choice is made as to what to publish electronically; further restriction is placed what is print published. Electronic distribution has been free. Due to costs and loss of funding (from Maxwell), they will now ask $25 per year (12 issues). Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 6: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:32) 10 lines What does this have to do with small, rural communities? This community -- Telluride, for example -- could process information for the rest of the world. For example, a medical expert could answer medical inquiries or medical librarians could do research based on information made available from here. The existing telecommunications network and technology portends the "ruralization of America." What happens to local people who have lived here all their lives, particularly if people come from the cities with their money, equipment, and training? How do we make these skills and tools accessibility to the community (that is, the existing community)? Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 7: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:32) 9 lines Peter related his change in focus from writing interactive training programs that required large computer equipment in past times to being able to use today's authoring tools and equipment to write at home or outdoors on the mesa. There are opportunities for others to develop services to support his writing and distribution of training programs -- CD disk duplication, for example. Service providers in the community -- grocers, laundry, restaurants, and so on -- will benefit from an increased population to serve. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 8: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:33) 9 lines But, how do the people and children in the community learn and develop marketable skills? Sherri is a good example. She can market her services and products world wide. Still, *how* do people educate themselves? How do people learn about information sources out there -- the right magazine, the Internet, and so on? How many residents of Telluride are attending the Festival? Perhaps three or four. The community is unaware or perhaps uninterested. A regular column in The Daily Planet would provide information to the community on what's out there. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 9: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:33) 5 lines Will this engender the trend of the information "haves" and "have nots"? Will the newcomers be the "haves" and the existing community the "have nots"? Certainly the children are being educated with the appropriate skills and tools. Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 10: (teluride) Sat, Jul 24, '93 (23:34) 5 lines Will access to this technology dehumanize or liberate? Will people become dehumanized by interaction through computer? It does provide anonymity that in a sense is equalizing. And is the two-hour-commute rat race equally dehumanizing? Topic 27: Electronic publishing and rural communities # 11: Judy Malloy (jmalloy) Sun, Jul 25, '93 (10:50) 2 lines Note that discussion of issues raised in this session is in topic 23 .