T
he Publications Committee began this year by recreating The Historian newsletter as it had been published by the late Marty Lewin. Unfortunately we could not access any of Marty's old files and had to produce the newsletter litterally from scratch. The first issue came out in March. The Second in July, and we're expecting to ship the third issue in November.
As you can read elsewhere, we've taken The Historian "green." The newsletter is being printed on recycled paper with soy inks. Those wishing to forego the paper altogether can receive their copy of the newsletter by e-mail, with the added bonus of being in full color, a feature too expensive for the paper version. E-mail
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with the subject line "green" if you wish to receive the newsletter by e-mail instead of paper.
Based on the experiences learned by having to recreate the newsletter, we determined that there was a need for a redesign from front to back. Committee members Kathie Paluch and Nick Dorochoff undertook this task and the new design was embodied in the July issue. It is a more open and flexible layout than in prior years. We moved the listings of new and renewing members off the back page in response to complaints about privacy voiced by several directors and members. We added a mystery photo to the back cover and generally produced an easier to read publication. From the old stilted "justified" (all text the width of the column) makeup, we went to "ragged right" (text is not flush at the right of the column, rather it breaks at appropriate locations) resulting in a layout in which we don't hyphenate words nearly as often. This speeds up reading.