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