On Dec 31, 2004, at 19:49, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
newsletters are often the reason people pay dues to belong, and can be the only contact many members have with a Guild.
Number 1 and 2 and 3 and umpteen reason for me; most of the guilds I "belong" to are much too far away for me to participate in any way (other than send an occasional piece of lace to a fundraiser). The newsletter tells me what my far-away friends are doing and keeps a tenuous line of communication open till/if I can make a live contact with some of them.
Further, many members of Guilds are very willing to design and write for them
as an unpaid contribution,
You say "many"... Does it mean that there are some who are actually paid, not volunteer, worker ants? <VBG>
Could we lose a lot of positive impact if Guilds lose members or potential members - people who decide to by-pass membership and get newsletters free?
We will lose impact if we lose members, true. But I don't think we'll lose members if *old* newsletters are posted on the Internet for all to see. Observe what happens when the first person announces the arrival of the current IOLI Bulletin (or the OIDFA one, or the Knipplebrevet, or whatever else) - everyone else is sitting on pins and needles to get their own copy, *now*. Not a year or more later.
I think weblishing patterns and/or articles - fragments from the major publications (the way The Lace Guild, UK presents snippets from the current Lace) - has a positive place in the larger scheme of things. Even publishing the entire newsleter (sans the renewal form, every time, which sometimes accounts for 25% of the content?) might not be a bad thing.
IMO, it all depends on *when* the material is published, as well as on how big a proportion of a publication is made available, to all and sundry as a freebie... I used to have a running controversy with JoAnn Eurell (IOLI's previous President) on the subject. Her position was: "weblishing best snippets is an excellent 'bait' for new members". True enough, especially if the Bulletin is not your only contact with US lacemaking (as it was for me, for many years). My position was: "the morsels will be equally tempting if presented 6 months later; let those who pay for the priviledge have the edge of enjoying it first, in hardcopy". I think both positions have some merit, which is why we agreed to disagree.
Have you thought that what you were voluntarily contributing would be
available on the Internet - at no obligation on the part of a reader not interested
in supporting today's lace students, authors, designers and teachers?
Personalities differ but me, my first allegiance is to lace-at-large, not to a particular sect of it. So I don't mind if any of my stuff gets posted "out there" for all to see. Provided that those who paid (subscribed to a magazine/guild/whatever) get a first crack at it :) Amid the holiday hoopla, I managed to screw out several hours of hard-core (for me; my son was exasperated how dim I was about the basics <g>) 'puter learning, so that I'll be able (holding my breath and fingers crossed) to post free patterns on my website. But none of the patterns will be of the "see it here first" variety; all will be reprints from magazines/newsletters, which are much more ephemeral than books, and harder to get back issues of.
How would small Guilds stay alive without financing that comes from dues some people pay just to get news?
I know at least one - small - guild which doesn't have a newsleter of its own. It manages to stay alive all the same. It has "try BL" kits for rental, a modest library for members, arranges opportunities to demonstrate in public places, has enough members to pull off an occasional workshop or Lace Day... It sends the earth shaking news to its "spiritual mother" (the regional guild) and saves the money on printing and postage. And sends off an e-bulletin in cases of emergency.
I see nothing wrong with running a guild on a shoestring; indeed, I strongly approve, since that's how I run the rest of my life :)
Would members be diverted to endless fundraisers which
require time that today's lacemakers already are hard-pressed to provide? Etc.
Forgive me but... What purpose would those "endless fundraisers" serve? Where would the harvested money go to? I've been no end frustrated about this fundraising business in US, ever since my son became a part of the school system 23 yrs ago... You raise $1 and 95 cents of it is either already bespoke (for the "goodies" you hand out as gift/baits), or else is plowed back into more fundraising. Fundraising has become an idol of its own and is self-serving. Pfui. When I wanted to donate for the tsunami relief, I looked at the organisations' financial statement first - anyone who spent less than 85% on the cause and more than 10% on fundraising was out of consideration; I don't have enough money or patience to support constant phone and mail-in pleas
Will it be combined with something you consider to be inappropriate?
Twisting intellectual property into "inappropriate" use is always a risk. Vide Fermi - he played around with curious physical phenomena and, before anyone knew it, Hiroshima and Nagasaki went up in a stinking mushroom cloud...
That doesn't mean that I'm going to sit on *my* intellectual property :) If I could (and needed to) make money off of it, I wouldn't be publishing free patterns in newsletters, or in a book whose sole intention is to make money for a lace cause. *You* don't get any payment for the books you make available for scanning at the Professor's site... Quite the opposite - you *pay* (postage) to get them there, and don't think about it twice...
Yet we all know that pirates have raided the site, cropped a CD from it, and sold it on E-bay at least once. Has it stopped you from contributing books to the site? No, because you know that what you're doing is of long-ranging good, no matter how much twisting happens along the way.
That's how I think of what I do - I hope the seed I sow will grow like kudzu, covering the deserving and the un-deserving alike :) Especially since it's difficult to separate... 5yrs from now, who's going to be able to lay hands on the Lace Museum Guild's newsletter dated Spring 1994, even if they're willing to pay for it (and to the Guild, not to the E-bay seller)?
How does one obtain permission from each and every individual contributor, or should
that not be considered? Will someone send newsletters to The Professor without
Guild approval? Will local Guild policies and By-Laws require re-writing to
address this subject?
OK, here's my ( commonsense, deflated <g>) 5c on that angle:
1) all original material (patterns, articles) contributed to a newsletter/magazine is copyright of the author, in so far that the author can re-publish it elsewhere at a later date wheneves she wishes. But the copyright of the newsletter/magazine belongs to the issuing Guild/group, in so far as its editor did the work of setting up etc. The author relinquishes some rights in the process, though not all. But it would allow for the entire newsleter to be published, in toto, without having to contact each individual contributor.
2) For a person to send issues for scanning, sneaky-poo, without letting the issuing guild (and The Editor!) know, would be underhanded in the extreme, on a par with you-know-who (but I don't want to start a political debate here <g>)
3) Writing something short but coherent and comprehensive in the guild's/group's by-laws would make sense; it would serve as a guide-post-of-intentions in case of the administration change, and the rules could always be changed, by a majority vote, if necessary.
In general, I think that Internet-availability of the newsleters (*especially* the small, less widely read ones) could be of tremendous importance to those interested in the history of lacemaking, some 50 yrs hence or later. No skin off my nose, since I'm a "rude mechanical", not a historian, but...
We learnt a lot about 17th century England from Samuel Pepys' diaries (once they'd been decoded, that is; he must have been anal about hoarding his intellectual property, also <g>), for all most of his diary entries are mundane in the extreme, and his self-satisfaction boring. We learn a lot about lacemaking from the dedicated historians who dig through censuses and wills and such, for tid-bits mentioning lace...
The reports of very small groups and their doings (who got elected treasurer etc) aren't, in themselves, overly exciting, to anyone but the participants. But look at it from the point of view of someone "digging" into the history of lacemaking 100yrs hence...
Group X celebrated its 15th anniversary, with a cake and an exhibition (photos included)... Ergo, lacemaking was healthy enough in 1989 *to* form a group which shared an interest in the passtime.
Group Y organised a 16hr weekend workshop - on Binche, wire lace, Milanese, whatever; 12 people participated, and good time was had by all... Ergo, enough lacemaking people live in the area to mount such a workshop.
Group Z clocked 100+ member-hours demonstrating at an abc venue... Ergo, in '04 there was enough interest in the peculiar art/craft/skill to secure a public display of it.
The photos and the names of contributors of articles might provide insights into the divisions along the sexual lines.
Etc, etc, etc... The amount of information which could be gathered from the various newsletters - given a true dedication to the subject - could be substantial (to say the least, a la UK <g>) and important.
Which is why I'm all for it. But I think it ought to be a "delayed release" type of pill; those who pay for subscription get it *now*, those who don't, wait. And risk having a spotty/incomplete info. Which seems fair enough to me.
This is an opportunity to have a lively, but gentle, "discussion" on Arachne
Out of sheer curiosity... Why did you put "discussion" in quotes? I tend to use quote marks when the word is used colloquially, ie the first explanation in the dictionary is not the meaning I have in mind/the most obvious one. Or, if I use the term with a bit of derision, when I mean an opposite of what I say... So, by my standards (and they're not a personal quirk, but something I learnt in school in Poland), by putting discussion into quote marks, you meant that you really didn't want to have any... Or, at least, none that would contradict the implications contained in your own message. Which (the implications) were, as far as I gathered: people who contribute to various lace newsletters should object to having their material published further, to prevent the free-loaders getting hold of it; only the members of the club are entitled to the benefits.
I think, in this particular case, it's possible to save the best of the loaf for the paying members, while making the rest of it freely available to everyone else (who either has no money or no honour)
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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