August 21, 2008
From the editor: Goodbye to all that; ‘UWeek’ going paperless
This issue of University Week is the last of the summer. It is also the last paper issue ever. When we resume publication on Sept. 25, we will be online only.
I face this day with mixed feelings. When I started my career in 1976 at a daily newspaper, we were just beginning the move from electric typewriters to computer terminals. From the newsroom I could walk out to the back shop and find a whole crew of printers whose job it was to take stories that had been turned into long strips of type and wax them down on the page. Editors stood beside the printers, cutting too-long stories on the fly and making sure everything appeared in its proper place. And at the end of the day there was always a tangible product — this newspaper one could hold in one’s hands.
I joined the University in 1984, just a year after University Week started. At first our process was much like that at my daily paper, just on a smaller scale. But over the years I’ve seen many, many changes — the move from drawing a page layout on paper to creating it electronically using first Pagemaker and then InDesign, the move from film to digital photography, and finally the creation of a Web edition. University Week put up its first Web site 10 years ago, and we’ve been moving more and more in that direction ever since.
I’ve enjoyed the challenge as each new development came along, while at the same time mourning what was being lost with the passing of the old ways. I imagine most people feel that way as they move through their careers, but few of us would want to go back and give up the new tools we’ve been given. And in spite of what we might prefer, our job is to serve our clients in the way they want to be served. When University Week asked its readers whether they preferred to get the publication on paper or online, they were quite clear: Only 10 percent preferred paper, compared to 65 percent who preferred online. The other 25 percent liked having both.
We heard our readers and we obey. Now, as we bring one era to a close, we open the door to a new and exciting one. The online world has already allowed us to do things we couldn’t do on paper — like including slide shows and videos along with our traditional stories and providing instant links to related material available elsewhere.
What we’re really excited about, however, is the ways in which being online will allow you to get involved. Last May we introduced free classified ads to University Week, something we never had space for on paper. The ads were an instant hit, even in the quiet summer months at the University. This fall we plan to introduce a number of other interactive features to our site — features that will allow us to do such things as publish photos taken by people in our community and provide space for campus groups to tell their stories.
We realize, however, that online publication has its drawbacks. Chief among them is more difficult access for staff who do not normally work at a computer. That’s why by fall we plan to have in place a “one-click-print” feature that will allow a reader who wants to to print out the entire issue just by clicking once. We are also willing to meet with any department head or supervisor whose employees are in this situation. Because we want everyone to be able to read UWeek, we’ll do what we can to accommodate you.
So, as summer quarter ends, we at University Week will be busy planning for a new way of doing things. As I write this on Tuesday, I’m not sure how I’ll feel when I receive that last paper UWeek. Maybe I’ll have it framed. But although I won’t be able to hold our new publication in my hands, I know the essence of our work hasn’t changed. At the end of the day, it’s still all about serving our readers.
