Vo lu me 38Number 3

Nov ember/ December 2004

STC Scholarships in Technical Communication Available

id you know that the STC has an established program of scholarships in the areas of technical

writing, editing, graphic design, interface, and Web design? These scholarships are designed to assist students who are pursuing established degree programs in some aspect of technical communication. Each year the STC provides four scholarships of $1000 each toward tuition and expenses. Two awards are granted to graduate students and two to undergraduates.

You are eligible to apply for one of these scholarships if you meet the following criteria:❏ You have completed at least one year of post-secondary education. ❏ You are a full-time student, either as a graduate students working toward a Master’s or Doctor’s degree, or an undergraduate student working toward a Bachelor’s degree. ❏ You have at least one full year of academic work remaining to complete your degree program, although under exceptional circumstances an award may be granted to a student for the final half-year.

❏ You are studying communica-tion of information about technical subjects. Other majors, such as general journalism, electronic communication engineering, computer programming, creative writing, or entertainment, are not eligible.

Applications must be received by February 15 of the year for which the scholarship is needed. Graduate students must notify the committee of their acceptance in a graduate program by March 20. Applicants will be notified by mail of the committee’s decision no later than April 15.

For more information and an application, check out the STC website (http://www.stc.org/Word_ Files/scholarshipInfo.doc).

DContents

STC Scholarships in Technical Communication Available__________________________ 1

Editor’s VoiceLife Can Get in the WayBy Lori Corbett ___________ 2

President’s PodiumTransforming Your MembershipBy Steven Lungren _______ 3

Director-Sponsor NotesGet Ready: It’s a HurricaneBy Rahel Bailie, Region 7 Director-Sponsor _________ 4

September Meeting ReviewUsing Personas to Connect with Your AudienceBy Barrie Byron __________ 5

Crossword PuzzleBy Zsolt Olah ____________ 6

Book Review by Al BrownA History of Reading__________________________ 7

Membership as of September 30, 2004

Total Members 17,980

Members residing in the U.S. 15,357

Member of Philadelphia Metro Chapter 371

Members residing in Canada 1,595

Members residing elsewhere 1,028

Total # of chapters*

*includes 33 student chapters

147

November/December 2004 2 NEWS & VIEWS

NEWS & VIEWS

Submissions and ReprintsYou may reprint original

material appearing in NEWS & VIEWS, as long as you acknowledge the source and author and send us a copy of the publication containing the reprint.

ISSN 1078-9952. NEWS & VIEWS, published six times per year, is the official publication of the Philadelphia Metro Chapter of STC. We encourage letters, articles, and other items for publication. Note: By submitting an article, you implicitly grant a license to this newsletter to run the article and for other STC publications to reprint it without permission. Unless otherwise noted, copyrights for all newsletter articles belong to the authors. The design and layout of this newsletter are copyright STC, 2004.

Address submissions or comments to Lori Corbett, Managing Editor, NEWS & VIEWS, 22 Creekside Drive, Sanatoga, PA, 19464, phone (610) 382-8683; email stcmember@aol.com.

ToolboxWe produce NEWS & VIEWS

with Frame-Maker 6.0 and Acrobat 6.0 on various Pentium computers.

Newsletter StaffManaging EditorLori Corbett

stcmember@aol.comLayout EditorRose Marie Sosnowy

(610) 792-4031Associate EditorAl Brown (856) 222-7427Rebecca Richardson

rebecca.one@verizon.netMary Shaw

mary@ladywriter.netAlso Contributing to This IssueRahel BailieBarrie ByronZsolt OlahMike Sharp

EDITOR’S VOICE

Life Can Get in the Way

By Lori Corbett

’m sitting here, writing under duress. You see, I’m moving this week. Yippee! All my books are packed and I’m

sitting amid boxes and empty bookshelves. Still have to pack up my clothes closet and the kitchen though.

Since I’ve been in Pennsylvania for the past two and half years, I’ve been in an apartment—a lovely apartment—but an apartment nonetheless. I finally took the plunge and put money down on a townhouse. Gulp, more money than this gal from North Carolina and Florida ever expected to spend for a house, that’s for sure.

So now I’m about three-quarters packed and I’ve got to get this newsletter to Rose Marie because “the show must go on.” There is so much going on in the world of STC too. One can hardly ignore it. The transformation changes are going to affect all of us. I, for one, think that if we approach these changes with the right mindset, our chapter, and indeed, all of STC, will benefit.

The question for each of us is what value do we place on our membership in the STC, the Philadelphia-Metro chapter, and any SIGs we might also be involved with? I certainly can’t attempt to speak for anyone but myself. So, since I have the opportunity, I’d like to say just a couple of things about this subject.

Among other personal things, I identify myself as a user advocate first and a technical communicator

second. My membership in STC is an inherent ingredient in that self identification. Whenever I connect with my fellow STC members, I always receive the benefit of learning about how we all face many of the same challenges and deal with many of the same issues. I am lifted up by this knowledge. Attending this past week’s presentation by John Hawkins on an alternative single-source solution to XML, I was reminded about this very fact. I returned to work the next day renewed and reinvigorated to be the best user advocate I can be.

Yes, my membership in STC and in the Philadelphia Metro chapter is very important to me. Now that I’ve gotten used to working online about 90% of the time, I am seriously considering

the E-Membership alternative. I think my bookshelves will appreciate it. I don’t think I’ve thrown away a single issue of Intercom or Technical Communication since I joined STC in 1988. Having a searchable online database of articles will be invaluable to me.

If you would like to talk about how you can become more involved or what your membership in STC means to you, I would love to hear from you. Hmmmm... This brings up another issue. I am giving up my Comcast account and will be converting to DSL in my new house. However, as we go to print, I do not yet have that contact information. But all is not lost. In the meantime, you can contact me via my AOL account at stcmember@aol.com.

I

“the show must go on”

STC-PMC LEADERSHIP

Address correspondence for the Philadelphia Metro chapter of STC to STC-PMC, P.O. Box 60069, Philadelphia, PA 19102-0069.

SOCIETY FOR TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

Mission Statement: Designing the Future of Technical Communication

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is an organization dedicated to advancing technical communication. Membership is open to those employed in, interested in, or concerned with the profession of technical writing, publishing, or associated disciplines. Contact STC at 901 N. Stuart St., Suite 904, Arlington, VA 22203, (703) 522-4114 or http://www.stc.org.

Chapter OfficersPresidentSteve Lungren (267) 620-2421Vice PresidentJane Phillips (856) 608-7200TreasurerGary Samartino

(610) 701-0577SecretaryJill Cassidy (215) 590-9815Immediate Past PresidentNad Rosenberg (856) 484-6598Region 1 Director/SponsorJon Baker (978) 443-3049

Chapter Committee ManagersEmployment Giacomo DeAnnuntis

(215) 482-1255ProgramsJulia Margulies

(484) 344-2448MembershipMike Sharp (856) 854-2141NEWS & VIEWSLori Corbett

(610) 382-8683NominatingMike Sharp (856) 854-2141WebsiteLois Shank lbshank@ptd.netCompetitionDonn DeBoard (484) 595-6216Marc Green (610) 358-0631

PRESIDENT’S PODIUM

Transforming Your Membership

By Steven Lungren

he transformation of STC is bringing new membership options to you this fall. You’ll have

more options available to you, and these options are intended to provide a better match for the different ways that members interact with the organization.

You’ll need to figure out how you will get the most value from your STC membership when you renew, and the new categories of membership may make your decision easier. Or, they may make it more confusing.

In the “New Individual Membership Categories: Costs and Benefits” table (page 8), you can see that your non-student STC membership now has three levels, Classic, Limited, and E-Membership, each at different cost.

Two of them—Classic Membership and E-Membership—offer you incremental SIG and chapter membership in an a la carte fashion. The Classic Member-ship most nearly represents the type of membership that we have had up to now. The E-Membership reduces your cost by ten dollars, but takes away your printed publications—you will only be able to view them online. The Limited Membership is restricted to STC publications only, with no option to join any chapter or SIG.

Which option looks good to you? I can tell you that there is some

information missing from the table. It doesn’t tell you that because of the Transformed method for distributing funds from the STC to the various chapters and SIGs, the

resources that have been available to those entities will change. In most cases, the STC will probably provide less financial support to chapters. That financial support comes in the form of rebates to the chapter from the STC based on chapter membership statistics.

Your Philadelphia Metro Chapter routinely underwrites a large portion of our program meeting and annual conference costs. Even though our committees are conscientious and considerate of costs when planning chapter events, the chapter loses a significant amount of money on each monthly meeting in order to keep the cost reasonable for our members. Similarly, the STC-PMC Annual Conference in March has never broken even. It’s too bad that more of you don’t take advantage of this benefit.

On the other hand, the registration fee was extraordinarily low for the Pacesetter award winning, day-long conference of workshops and presentations that featured the internationally respected Ann Rockley.

Another bit of information that the table doesn’t show you is that the new membership categories will cause additional price levels to be created for your local chapter events.

STC members who are also chapter members will get the best discount for program meetings, the conference, and other chapter events. STC members who are not also members of the chapter, such as a person with a Limited Membership or an E-Membership with only SIGS, will be required to

T

(Continued on page 8)

November/December 2004 3 NEWS & VIEWS

NEWS & VIEWS

STC-PMC CALENDARUnless otherwise noted, all meetings follow this schedule:Networking: 6:00 to 6:30 p.m.Dinner: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.Program: 7:30 to 9 p.m.

November 18. Changing Focus: “Instructional Design as a Career Path,” presented by Constance Bille.

Instructional design is one path technical communicators sometimes have an opportunity to follow. During this presentation, you will learn how to assess your skill set in relation to the skills required for the instructional design field. You will also learn some strategies for acquiring the skills you might not yet include in your personal skill set.

Location: Philadelphia University, Downs Auditorium, Henry Ave. and School House Lane, Philadelphia, PA

January 20. Global Communication: “Where in the World Is Your Project?” presented by Heather Petit, Senior Technical Communication Consultant at First Consulting Group (FCG) and Marcia Jacquette, Independent Technical Communication Consultant.

Like it or not, we're communicating globally. Mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, new clients. More and more of our work requires working with someone offshore; more often than not, we're frustrated and disappointed by the experience. What can we do to ensure that we can focus on the technical issues without getting clobbered by the cultural issues? Join us for a discussion of business etiquette in the global economy.

Location: TBD

DIRECTOR-SPONSOR NOTES

Get Ready: It’s a Hurricane

By Rahel Bailie, Region 7 Director-Sponsor

n a recent conversation with an STC community leader, we discussed the changing face of technical communi-

cation and the implication for STC members in his chapter. His geographic area has been particu-larly hard hit, with a number of community members working survival jobs until they can re-enter the technical communication field, or holding onto jobs they would otherwise have outgrown.

Technical writers, he worries, are hunkering down in their cubicles and he fears that when they come up for air, they will no longer have a skill set that has sufficient currency in the marketplace.

To say that the changes in the field of technical communication are of hurricane proportions is not an exaggeration. Our workplaces, our careers, peers in our STC network—if we haven’t been affected personally, we have been affected indirectly. Some of us have seen our jobs swept away, others have had work debris dumped on us, and ill-implemented changes often bring huge clean-ups from projects gone awry.

What concerns me is hearing that the response to this flurry of change is to sit tight and keep working. Watching Hurricane Frances, then Ivan, sweep through the Caribbean and across Florida, we watched the CNN reports of people jumping to action: board up the windows to protect the home, then get out of the storm’s pro-jected path. It involves a lot of hard work, and a fast response, but the

pay-off is to get to safety, and be able to bounce back. When we see the eye of a storm moving toward us, is it in our best interest to sit tight and wait it out? Or should we be hustling to move our skill sets into a safer zone, where we’ll be able to bounce back once the worst of the economic storm has passed?

Economists talk about how, as the jobs we know move around the globe, we must be prepared to “move up the value chain.” This means that we need to add more value as strategic contributors. We can do this by looking up the technical communication profes-sion chain.

For example:❏ Writers can look at other content develop-ment skills that bring more value to the workplace, or expand their skill set to usability practices. ❏ Editors can look at the localization and internationaliza-tion field to see where they could add skills.❏ Marketing Communication writers could expand to a broader set of communication products. ❏ Departments can learn how to use content management systems to add value to their work. ❏ Usability folks can apply their principles to interaction design. ❏ Help writers can expand their horizons to interaction design.

In other words, we can look for the logical expansion of our skill sets.

How we move up the profes-sional food chain isn’t by staying in our cubicles with our noses to the grindstone. We protect our careers and our futures through continual professional development, net-

I

(Continued on page 5)

4 November/December 2004

November/December 2004 5

STC AND RELATED EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD

November 12–17. The American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) annual meeting, “Managing and Enhancing Information: Cultures and Conflicts,” in Providence, RI. For more information, see the ASIST website: www.asis.org.

November 18–23. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual convention at the Indianapolis Convention Center. For more information, contact NCTE at public_info@ncte.org.

January 15. Submission deadline for abstracts for the Fifth International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, which will be held September 17-19 in Chicago. For more information check out the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) website at www.jama-peer.org.

January 15–16. Region 2 Conference at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Williamsburg, VA.

SEPTEMBER MEETING REVIEW

Using Personas to Connect with Your Audience

By Barrie Byron

InfoSeeker: Nancy… 44 years old

… 8 years as a Technical Writer at a global scientific manufacturing corporation

… Prior career: 4 years as an English teacher at local high school

… Spends 7 of 8 work hours each day on a computer

… Graduated with Bachelors Degree in English from state university

… Married, with two teenage children

… Drives 23 miles to work each way

… Listens to NPR in her car

… Uses the web at work to research industry-related content and to check her personal web mail account

… Manages the middle school PTA mailing list and correspondence

… Is an avid bird watcher

hy do these facts about an arbitrary person named Nancy matter? These

specific details personify one of us: the technical writer!

On Thursday, September 23, Whitney Quesenbery, of Whitney Interactive Design, presented a program titled “Using Personas to Connect with Your Audience.” We learned how creating and using a persona can help us make design decisions, design documentation sets, and bring our users alive.

A persona is a portrait of a typical user based on data. A persona has the characteristics of a “real person” and represents important demographics. A persona is specific, not generalized. A persona is hypothetical, not real. Effective personas are often

accompanied by photos, usually of a model in a representative setting.

Nancy, our hypothetical technical writer, specifically defines the information seeker—educated communication professional with a prior teaching career.

By giving Nancy a name, age, occupation, hobbies, marital status, and other details, this “story” gives us easily remembered information we can use to organize facts and transmit knowledge. We can remember and discuss Nancy more easily than we can remember an impersonal collection of demographic data.

Personas help us connect our work to real people. Using Nancy in scenarios and stories helps us organize facts in a new way. In design sessions, Nancy can help designers work through design problems by considering how she would prefer to accomplish a task, not just how she would perform a task.

Personas, like all of us, have a point of view and can even attend design sessions, comment on design issues, and help us keep our audience in view.

Whitney Quesenbery expertly develops new concepts for product designs. She conveyed the idea that personas are an excellent shorthand method of bringing the user into our everyday work life. I, for one, enjoyed creating the technical writer persona, Nancy, for this article. I will certainly use personas in future user analysis work. Nancy has become a dear friend and she’s never far from my mind.

WGet Ready: It’s a Hurricane (Continued from page 4)

working, and life-long learning. We can learn a lot about what we want to do—or even about what we may want to eliminate as a career enhancement—by staying informed about developments in related fields, attending STC meetings to network with our peers (and the peers with whom we’d like to keep company), and by continually gaining and honing new skills. It’s the surest way to survive the storms that regularly sweep through the umbrella profession that we call technical communication.

NEWS & VIEWS

NEWS & VIEWS 6 November/December 2004

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

By Zsolt Olah

Solution on page 7

1

H2

A3

L4

L O5

W6

E7

E N8

H9

A10

Y A R D11

O X X12

S I X13

P A14

I15

S M C E16

I17

H A18

R I19

K A20

R21

I22

R23

A M24

B U N C T I O U S25

L I F E T I M E N O

I26

T Z27

M28

O I S T29

N30

O T31

R E E32

E G O R33

K P34

A R R35

E N N O36

E37

O B38

X T39

A40

E P41

D R A42

C U43

L A44

N45

O R I46

O A47

E G O M A N I A C

ACROSS1. The only time when turkeys

sympathize with pumpkins8. Half-laugh

10. Space in the back11. OXX12. VI13. Pennsylvania14. How most of our system of

principals end17. Rhyming harakiri22. Boisterous and disorderly25. Longlasting type of experience26. TS27. Slightly wet.29. Futuristic subway stop at the urban

forrest32. In the kitchen cupboard: the shelf,

especially as distinct from the world and other shelves

33. KP34. End of a famous committee36. EO38. Extra extension40. EP41. Rural blood sucker44. Hungarian name. Backwards:

metal.46. OA47. Shelf-obsessed (see across 32).

DOWN1. Click target2. Car people3. Left and Right4. LDI5. Lecherous pursuer6. EX7. Boredom killer8. Greeting9. Wood cutting, finger chopping tool

12. If you liked Finding Nemo, this creature will definitely make you shed tears

15. Enthusiastic photo-beetle16. Monetary fund18. RCM19. KI20. Beginning of Russia21. Standardized tropical resort, which

is identical in all directions23. A little bits of intelligence24. Exist28. OG33. TE30. Well-known musical browser31. RA35. Test37. OA39. ... Arbor40. ...of time41. Act42. CE43. LO45. OI

UPCOMING STC WEB AND TELEPHONE SEMINARS

Upcoming STC Web and Telephone Seminars

All of these seminars are held from 1:00–2:30 p.m. Each seminar costs $99 per site for STC members. (The nonmember rate is $149 per site.) A site can have only one phone connection and one computer connection.

In addition to offering high-quality training at an affordable price, STC's seminar series features a quick and simple online registration process. For detailed information about any of the following seminars, go to stc.webex.com.

November 10. Introducing Windows 'Longhorn' Help, presented by Char James-Tanny (Web-Telephone)

December 8. Highlighting Hazards: Mastering Warnings and Error Messages, presented by Leah Guren (Telephone)

January 12. Preemptive Project Planning, presented by John Hedke (Web-Telephone)

January 26. A Pound of Salt, a Pint of Blood—Getting the Most Out of Your Contractors to Ensure Project Success, presented by Tom White (Web-Telephone)

Guidelines: Not your typical crossword. Some of the definitions may be vague, associative, even funny. A single word CAPITALIZED (e.g., across 11) is your guide. Use it ‘as is.’

STC-PMC MEMBER UPDATES

By Michael Sharp, Membership Chairperson

It’s been a while since we listed our new members, reinstated members, and members who have transferred to STC-PMC from another chapter. The STC-PMC extends a warm welcome to all of you.

New Members:❏ Richard Berrigan Jr.❏ Shirl Ann Evans❏ Xiang Gao❏ Carl Husa❏ Christopher Mazza❏ Yvonne McCleary❏ Ray Pidge❏ Ryan E Rasmussen❏ Lori Wilson❏ Samuel C Wooters

Reinstated Members:❏ Jonathan W Acheson❏ Lynn H Cherrin❏ Patricia Gage❏ Randall J Hechinger❏ Melissa Karakashian❏ Michael M Mowad❏ William A Shook❏ David Voss❏ Lori Wilson

Members Transferring from Another Chapter:

❏ David B Kocur

Puzzle Solution from page 6:

1

H2

A3

L4

L O5

W6

E7

E N8

H9

A10

Y A R D11

O X X12

S I X13

P A14

I15

S M C E

E16

I17

H A18

R I19

K A20

R21

I22

R23

A M24

B U N C T I O U S25

L I F E T I M E N O

I26

T Z27

M28

O I S T29

N30

O T31

R E E32

E G O R33

K P34

A R R35

E N N O36

E37

O B38

X T39

A40

E P41

D R A42

C U43

L A44

N45

O R I46

O A47

E G O M A N I A C

BOOK REVIEW By Al Brown

A History of Reading

Steven Roger Fischer, 2003. London. Reaktion Books. [ISBN 1-86189-160-1. 384 pages. $20.97.]

et’s face it: Regardless of the cool technology we use—interactivity, XML, RoboHelp, single

sourcing, personas—virtually all of what we as a profession do comes down to reading. But what does it mean to read? Obviously it has to do with language. Is it decoding a record of spoken language? Fluent readers bypass the aural component and go directly from the visual representation on the page to its meaning. We think of reading as the cornerstone of civilization, but it wasn’t always that way. What is reading? How did it develop? Is it always the same? What is the future of reading in the electronic age?

These are the questions Steven Fischer addresses in A History of Reading. It is the final volume in a trilogy comprising A History of Language (1999) and A History of Writing (2001), which I have not read, but am now eager to. Fischer, Director of the Institute of Polynesian Languages and Literatures in Auckland, New Zealand, provides a brilliant survey of the history of an activity we all take for granted.

To summarize the beginnings of reading, which is obviously tangled up with the development of writing, is to engage in gross over-simplification. In Mesopotamia, markings used as memory aids for transactions and inventories evolved into complex legal and governmental records. To add a local note, the University of

Pennsylvania has one of the world’s largest collections of Sumerian clay tablets, on which these records were kept. Only later were they used to write down what we would call literature, that is, orally recited histories and stories.

One of the fascinating threads running through this book is the way technological innovations change the nature of reading. One cluster of these innovations occurred in the ninth century, durng what was known as the Carolingian renaissance, named for the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne. Until then, most reading was done aloud, in groups in public or in monasteries. Among the educational reforms Charlemagne instituted was the development of a new, simpler, and easier to read script. This Carolingian miniscule featured ascenders and descenders for the first time, which made words easier to recognize by their shape. The addition of spaces between words (a feature borrowed from Arabic translations of Greek texts) and punctuation marks (an innovation of Irish scribes), and the regulari-zation of a number of other aspects of writing, made it much easier to recognize words visually. Thus reading became less laborious, and it was more practical to read silently, rather than out loud.

This leads to the second major theme of the book, namely, as Fischer puts it in his chapter titles, the transition of reading from “The Papyrus Tongue” to “The Parchment Eye”: the oral to the visual, the loud to the silent, the public to the private, the external

L

(Continued on page 9)

November/December 2004 7 NEWS & VIEWS

Transforming Your Membership (Continued from page 3)

pay more to attend chapter functions than someone who is a member of the chapter, but less than someone who is not an STC member.

This transformed pricing structure is necessitated primarily by the fact that chapter membership includes additional benefits that aren’t in the Membership Categories table. It is also influenced by the way funding is calculated and distributed by the STC.

How the transformation impacts our chapter financially remains to be seen. However, when you are choosing your new membership level, remember that the extra cost you pay for the Classic Membership could be less than the added cost to attend a local chapter event if you are not a chapter member.

For example, a very different pricing structure is already planned for our March 2005 STC-PMC Annual Chapter Conference. I can assure you that membership in the Philadelphia Metro Chapter will be a great advantage for you to attend the conference.

So, your choice of membership categories comes down to your perception of the value that you can get in return for the selected category. Looking at it logically, there is no other membership category that can offer the value of the Classic Membership, or the E-Membership with the chapter option.

Only chapters can offer the special networking and personal contacts that can come from meeting face-to-face. Only chapters can organize and execute

a full season of monthly presentations and an annual conference of the caliber to which we have become accustomed. Only the chapters can provide that much value.

You may ask yourself, “Wow! How can a chapter provide so much value? It’s great! But, how can they do it?”

It’s because of our people and their location. In a chapter, people can physically meet, plan, and act locally. There’s a certain power to this dynamic that is missing in even the best of SIGs. When a group of people can get together and focus on achieving a goal they can often surpass their expectations. In the STC, chapters enable that to happen. That’s value added.

(Continued on page 9)

NEWS & VIEWS 8 November/December 2004

New Individual Membership Categories: Costs and Benefits

Membership Category

Publications CommunitiesVoting

PrivilegesCost (in USD)

Classic Membership

Paper copies of Intercom and Technical Communication, and access to the online versions.

❏ 1 chapter and 1 SIG, or❏ 3 SIGsAdditional SIGs $5 each; additional chapters $10 each

Yes U.S. members: 145.00Canadian members: 145.00 + $15

postageOverseas members: 145.00 + $35

postage

Retired members* 72.50

* To qualify, an individual must be retired and have been an STC member for at least 10 years. Retired members are not counted in the calculation of chapter rebate amounts.

Limited Membership

Paper copies of Intercom and Technical Communication, and access to the online versions.

None Yes U.S. members: 125.00Canadian members: 125.00 + $15

postageOverseas members: 145.00 + $35

postage

E-Membership Online access to Intercom and Technical Communication. No paper copies

❏ 1 chapter and 1 SIG, or❏ 3 SIGsAdditional SIGs $5 each; additional chapters $10 each

Yes U.S. members: 135.00Canadian members: 135.00Overseas members: 135.00

Student Online access to Intercom and Technical Communication. No paper copies

❏ 1 student chapter and 1 professional chapter

❏ SIGs available at no costAdditional chapters $10 each

No U.S. members: 50.00Canadian members: 50.00Overseas members: 50.00

Transforming Your Membership (Continued from page 8)

Book Review By Al Brown (Continued from page 7)

to the internal. This trend continued through the Middle Ages. It led to another major difference in the nature of reading. Because reading could now be a private activity, the reader’s relationship with the text was no longer mediated by a third party (in Europe, normally the Church); the reader engaged the text directly. Reading thus became simultaneously liberating and subversive. Though less well known, according to Fischer, the Carolingian renaissance revolutionized society and thinking as much as the invention of moveable type in the fifteenth century.

The effect of Gutenberg’s innovation has been chronicled numerous times, notably in Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (NEWS & VIEWS, November/December 2001). It triggered the protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years War. Fischer also makes the interesting observation

that printing gave rise to censorship. In the southern areas of Europe, where the Church was strongest, publishing was under tighter control; the printers in the northern protestant areas had more freedom. As a result, these areas produced more scientific and technological breakthroughs because of a freer flow of information and ideas. According to Fischer, the suppression of printing also occurred in Arabic lands with the result that the art and science of that culture ceased to flourish.

I particularly like the final chapter, “Reading the Future,” partly because Fischer doesn’t share the view of those like Sven Birkerts (The Gutenberg Elegies, in NEWS & VIEWS, April/May, 2004) who are so wrapped up in books as objects that they reject reading using any newer technology. One result of his historical perspective is that Fischer recognizes that printed books were a new and suspect technology once. He also discusses recent theories of the role of

reading, for example, the idea that “humanity may only achieve full linguistic competence through reading. The suggestion is remarkable, given that reading was humanly elaborated only around 5,700 years ago. If extraordinary human faculties and powers do lie dormant until a social innovation calls them into life, perhaps this might help to explain humanity’s constant advancement.” In other words, there may be an element of human evolution that transcends genetics.

A History of Reading represents interdisciplinary history at its best: the kind of book that puts its subject—and our profession—in a cultural and historical context in a compelling and engaging way. This book clearly shows how closely the present and the future are linked to the past.

Author’s Note: Special thanks to Tanya at Strand Book Store in New York for helping me obtain this book.

Looking Forward to Our Conference in March

The theme for the STC-PMC Annual Conference on March 19, 2005 is Transforming Your Career.

Every year brings new demands on our skills, new technology to learn, new methods of working, and new ideas to our profession. How we accept, develop, and grow with the changes we encounter will determine how we are able to transform ourselves professionally along with our changing career opportunities in the coming years.

You can look forward to some surprising and exciting news about

our annual chapter conference soon!

In the meantime, you are invited to prepare your proposal to make a presentation at our conference. We’re now accepting your proposals and outlines for evaluation. If you would like to present your topic at our annual conference, contact me for further details.

If you’re not inclined to make a presentation or conduct a brief workshop, you can help us with sponsorship development for the conference. We’re looking for sponsors to help us with their

donations in return for publicity and exposure at our nationally recognized conference. We have several levels of sponsorship packages to accommodate different donation levels. If your company would like to participate please contact me or our Vice President Jane Phillips.

You can also participate by helping with publicity and promotion, program development/production, facility and hospitality, newsletter articles, and other tasks. Contact me and I will direct you to the lead person for your area of interest.

November/December 2004 9 NEWS & VIEWS

NEWS & VIEWS 10 November/December 2004

Upcoming MeetingsThe information in the following table was correct at the time NEWS & VIEWS was published. Be sure to check

the website (www.stcpmc.org) for details and late-breaking updates to the schedule. For all Thursday meetings, reservations are due by the Monday before the meeting.

Date Meeting Topic Location

November 18, 2004 Changing Focus: Instructional Design as a Career Path, presented by Constance Bille

Philadelphia University, Downs Auditorium

December, 2004 No Meeting This Month—Enjoy Your Holidays!

January 20, 2005 Global Communication: “Where in the World Is Your Project?” presented by Heather Petit, Senior Technical Communication Consultant at First Consulting Group (FCG) and Marcia Jacquette, independent Technical Communication consultant

TBD

February 17, 2005 Lifelong Learning Program TBD

March 19, 2005 Third Annual Philadelphia Metro Conference: Transforming Your Career with STC-PMC

Penn State University,Great Valley, PA

April 21, 2005 Knowledge Management TBD

May 8–11, 2005 STC’s 52nd Annual Conference Seattle, WA

May 19, 2005 Business Climate in Philadelphia TBD

June 16, 2005 Marriage of Image and Text TBD

MANJIRO In ter nat iona l

InternationalizationLocalizationTranslation

• Technical publications

• Multilingual web sites

• Software applications

Call for a free phone consultation

Phone: 267-972-1034

info@manjirointernational.com

www.manjirointernational.com

Dues Renewal Deadline and RatesThe STC office is currently developing a new online dues

renewal form. The office will notify members via email when the

online renewal form is ready.

Printed dues renewal invoices will be mailed in late November

to all members who do not renew their memberships online at

the STC website. For membership dues, STC accepts checks in

U.S. dollars or Canadian equivalent, and American Express,

MasterCard, and VISA payments. Dues payments must be

received by January 1, 2005. (A grace period extends to

February 28, 2005.) Note that only members who pay their dues

by February 28, 2005, are eligible to vote in the STC election.

Deadline for the

January/February 2005 newsletter

is November 29, 2004