This thread is drifting a bit far from Bob Vallio's original question, which was (to paraphrase) how much member dissatisfaction exists as a result of our offering access to recent QST archives to some members but not to all. To refresh everyone's memory, last September we were able to make the old QST View scans available to members online. We rolled out the publicity about the new benefit gradually so as not to be immediately overwhelmed. The benefit was very well received. Harold Kramer sent the following message a few days later to share staff's thoughts on how the online periodicals archive could evolve, including the idea of restricting access to the most recent years of QST to Brass level ($250/yr and up) Diamond Club members: _______ From: Kramer, Harold, WJ1B [mailto:wj1b@arrl.org] Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 12:13 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:17223] ARRL Periodicals Archive Expansion Plans The online ARRL Periodicals Archive is Evolving! We plan to extend portions of the on-line ARRL Periodicals Archive to Diamond Club members, NCJ subscribers, and QEX subscribers beginning in February 2009. We have chosen February since this is when the annually-produced ARRL Periodicals CD-ROM rollouts out and we want both products to be synchronized with each other. Here's a short summary of what's planned: * All ARRL members - get access to QST 1915-2005 (no access to the most recent 3 years) * Diamond Club Brass level and higher levels - get access to the entire QST archive, 1915-2008 Beginning Feb 2009 * ARRL members with current NCJ subscriptions - get access to the NCJ archive * ARRL members with current QEX subscriptions - get access to the QEX archive We are not ready to announce this publicly yet (probably closer to 2009) so please keep this information confidential. Harold _______ The announcement of the Brass level access to the recent archive was made to members four months later, on January 29. As for electronic distribution of QST on a monthly basis, members already have access to the timely QST content -- news, contest results and calendar, special event and hamfest/convention information, and product reviews -- via the Web. Most of the members I talk to who want to receive QST electronically don't want to receive a print copy; they want the electronic version as an alternative, not in addition to the print version. There is no question but that there will be further evolution toward electronic distribution of QST and our other periodicals. While the technical issues are not trivial and there's expense involved in doing it through a digital publisher such as Nxtbook Media, we're gaining some experience already; for example, see our VE Manual at http://issuu.com/arrl/docs/ve_manual_web. The biggest issue by far is the impact of electronic distribution (as an alternative to print distribution) on our advertising revenues. Advertising generates $2.6 million in gross revenues annually. Thanks to Deb Jahnke and her staff we have been extraordinarily successful in maintaining this important revenue stream in defiance of the strong downward trend in print advertising generally. However, we -- and most of the rest of the publishing world -- have been unable to find a business model for generating significant ad revenue from electronic distribution. The problem facing us in transitioning any significant portion of the membership to electronic distribution of QST is that advertisers do not value an ad delivered electronically as highly as an ad delivered on paper. Other organizations, particularly professional associations, may not be as dependent upon ad revenue and therefore would face less risk. This is not an argument against progress, only an argument for proceeding cautiously. A safer next evolutionary step than offering QST electronically would be to offer QEX. That's the direction our thinking is going in planning for 2010. 73, Dave K1ZZ -----Original Message----- From: Brian Mileshosky [mailto:n5zgt@swcp.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 12:59 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:17862] Re: [Fwd: ARRL membership] Here is one great example of putting a magazine online for viewing: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/cmp/mwee1208/#/16 Anyone with an internet connection can read it, and it appears that it can be saved for offline viewing. I'm guessing that this is a service, or there's some software application, that takes the electronic magazine as it's designed -- such as by those who create QST for us -- and converts it to this format. This doesn't address archiving, but we've already figured that out via our Adobe PDFed archives. 73, Brian N5ZGT On Wed, 24 Jun 2009, Brian Mileshosky wrote:
Marty --
Excellent points. I'm on the lookout for other organizations that offer their (current) publications electronically as an option or totally. One that comes to mind is IEEE, such as Xplore where you can view current and past issues as PDF files. Does anyone else know of any other organizations that offer their publications in a similar manner that we can explore?
I'd like to know what access controls they have in place, ease in use, etc. It'd be interesting to contact these organizations and ask them to comment on the pros and cons of their move to electronic media, what issues have been created due to it (if any), security considerations, cost benefits, etc.
73, Brian N5ZGT
On Wed, 24 Jun 2009, Marty Woll wrote:
While I agree that W6MU misunderstood or mischaracterized his situation, there may be a point or two in his complaint that should not be dismissed so readily.
1) I don't think the issue of piracy should be driving our operating or policy decisions. We have already given full content access to Diamond Club members. Do we trust people who pay $75 a year but not those who pay $39 a year? That's not a message I would want to be sending out to our membership.
2) I have encountered many members for whom electronic delivery of QST would be far more convenient. Many of those travel throughout the year and show up at hamfests in their motor homes. QST and other mail gets to them only when they stop by to pick up their mail, which is not often enough for timely access to any time-sensitive content.
3) A life member who is a retired professor of media communications has repeatedly admonished me about the League's "antiquated" content delivery system. Other similar membership organizations have successfully transitioned to electronic publishing, he tells me, and the ability to read QST on a portable device is appealing to the increasingly large segment of our population accustomed to getting their news that way. Younger members of our target audience, in particular, expect such access these days.
After all, isn't technology one of our "five pillars"?
Persisting in doing business the way we used to may appeal to the target audience we used to have, but that segment is shrinking in number. Unless we want ARRL to shrink with it, perhaps we should take a harder look at some of our operating practices.
73,
Marty
Marty Woll N6VI Vice-Director, ARRL Southwestern Division Ass't DEC, ARESLAX BCUL 15, LAFD ACS CERT III ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Frenaye To: arrl-odv Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 5:48 AM Subject: [arrl-odv:17857] Re: RE: Fwd: [Fwd: ARRL membership]
Bob -
W6MU said, "Now that I've lost access to the most current online QSTs I will no longer do so."
He never had access to the full on-line versions of QST. He hasn't lost anything. http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2009/01/29/10599/
I've had lots and lots of compliments about having QST online and only one or two complaints. If someone questions why we hold back the last few years I say that it is available to those who are the League's strongest supporters, and that we have had problems with content being pirated and want to preserve our ability to keep the ARRL financially viable.
I also tell them that one of our long-term questions is how to continue to survive as paper publishing becomes more expensive and we need to move to digital distribution. The newspaper industry is not a model we want to follow so far...
-- Tom
ARRL Director, Rocky Mountain Division On the web at www.RockyMountainDivision.org
ARRL Director, Rocky Mountain Division On the web at www.RockyMountainDivision.org