I am at one with you in generally preferring the printed book to any other medium. The question to be answered is: can the History be produced in book form to a good standard at reasonable cost? I'm happy to suspend judgment on that until we have the facts and figures.
When in 2000 we moved to a smaller house I took trailer-loads of books to charity shops, leaving me with my current collection of around 800. Only two of my books seemed to me to merit any special treatment, and they were the two Samovar Song Books, which I gave to the National Library of Scotland. Strictly speaking, being one of the UK's copyright libraries, the National Library of Scotland was entitled to free copies on publication. Fifty years later the National Library had still not received them, until my donation made up for the ommission! I suspect that these copies are the only publicly accessible copies in Scotland, and possibly in the UK. I tell the story to indicate how quickly books of minority interest can disappear from view. If we want to preserve the Langeleben experience for posterity, the future (as far as I can see) is digital!
Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:43 pm Post subject: History
Good evening Tom & Gordon, I think this subject of Book or Digital is a very difficult one to answer. I think we all agree that a book would be great as it is something 'tangible' ie one can hold it and read as and when. However, I thnk the question of 'cost' comes into consideration. How many pages will it be? How many copies will be required? What will the demand be? Therefore, what will the cost be? I suspect that a compromise may well be the answer ie we print it ourselves. A good quality printer with good quality paper and bound with thicker covers ,say to A5 size. This to be only in the event of printers not being able to print a proper book within our price. Something for discussion. Keith _________________ Keith Kerby (1955/6)
May I join the discussion please?
As Gordon knows a part of my business is the production of high quality books (which are really catalogues) with relatively small runs, average 1200. Our company expenditure on these is well in excess of £100,000 and so I have all of the contacts and buying power that is needed to follow this route , if necessary.
Yes, Keith, we can print out our own copies but even on a good quality printer you lose a lot of the quality - to date I have printed the 'book' out 3 times, ignoring the one or two colour bits. It looks what it is - 150 A4 pages in a ring back binding (in house).
I produced a little book on VC's (Tom has a copy) and this was done with top quality reproduction and half tones - the lot. Colour covers etc. I can give the costs on this as a guide but I don't think we need this quality.
As a pure conceit I would love to publish it, and I have access to ISBN numbers etc. but then we come to the number to be printed for sale. 100.... would be right ON A GOOD DAY. I co-wrote and publishd a bibliography on model yachting (don't laugh) and it took us about 3 years to sell the first 500 copies and that covered our costs. It got my name in Google though! A print run of less than 800 is probably not commercially feasible. Its only the cost of paper really after this number.
I would suggest that we carry on the discussion - why not - but do nothing for the time being. Contributions are coming in, I put more in only last night. There are promises of several other contributions some of which are quite important. We have to try and balance the excess of 50's, I Corps and NS contributions which is my aim at the moment, not by cutting out but by getting more input. Put the word out!
I still labour towards the final proof-reading too, which as a book becomes more important.
Anyway, thanks for all of the comment it is both helpful and gratefully received. It makes it all worthwhile.
Talking to the professionals (and Gordon is one but retired) the long term storage of electronic material is one hell of a problem. I sold my Edison cylinder player last year and have seen vinyl disappear. I recall Betamax. What happened to floppy discs? My contribution to the Imperial War Museum is on 2 cd's. It will be no damned use to man nor beast if in 50 years there is no cd player available for the PhD student to listen.
Anyway more to be chewed over and spat out.
Thanks, most sincerely to you all.
Your remarks on the transitory nature of digital storage devices reminded me that earlier this year I tried (and failed) to retrieve a moderately important document I had written and saved to a floppy a mere five years ago. So I agree, digitization is not the whole answer, just part of the answer.
It's one of those problems that are so important that you feel an answer just has to be found, and given the pace of technological change, probably will.
Meanwhile, major libraries throughout the world are sitting on vast quantities of crumbling newspapers which can be taken off the shelves for one last time to be microfilmed or digitized before they fall to pieces.
I think I will bequeath the paper copy of the History (if produced) to the grandchild most likely to be interested in it, and give the others a download on a flash card (or whatever the trendy medium is then!)
I've been fidling around, put some contributions in and re-instated some which had dropped off. Sorry John Fortey.
I have changed it to 8 point type and to A5 and viewed it as a book and it seems to work. It is then 134 pages long but I have to fiddle with the margins
I went to an I Corps Old Fogies meeting at a working Camp- Netheravon.
What a difference! 50%, are women, in fact they arranged the whole thing, there are 3 women RSM's in the Corps. One of them who talked on the role of women has a 6yr old and a 9mth old and her husband is in the Corps. She was talking about a 'posting to Afghanistan' and 'leaving the kids with Grandma'. If I were Granny I would start running Now. Overall what a smart lot they were and ... the Army has finally given up pimply leather boots. No wonder we can't beat anyone nowadays!
I met Mike Shail who was at Langeleben in the 60's. Reminiscing, he raved about Dewi as being a great charcter and said he should make a contribution. Does anyone know him well enough to talk him in to it?
Just popped in for a quickie. Two more contributions received to day and already they are in the latest version. Hopefully there are more contributions in the pipeline.I will ask Tom to put it on the web next week.
Hi Paul, I was visiting another R Signals site just now and came across a reference you may or may not be aware of. “The British Army’s Secret Intelligence and Communications Regiment of WW2; Bristol; Cerberus 2003 ISBN 1841451185. I’ve no idea what it’s like, but thought you might like to know. All the best. Dave T. _________________ Dave Thomas 2 Sqn 13 SR, '63-'66
Found it!
The book is actuall called Phantom at War by Sir Robt Mark, Andy & Sue Parlour.
It is the story of the General Hq Liaison Regt which was code named 'Phantom' and it seems that it was a true signals unit and mobile. It saw action at Arnhem for example. Doesn't seem tobe in our line sadly, but Thanks nevertheless.
Hi Paul, Well done for finding it so quickly, I've no idea what your resources are, but they're obviously very exstensive. Sorry it was no help, but these things have to be worth a shot. All the best, and have a good Christmas. Dave T _________________ Dave Thomas 2 Sqn 13 SR, '63-'66
As things are quiet at the moment apart from our trying to be a support to Marlene (I hope we are succeeeding) can I suggest that anyone who had their memories jolted by reading the History and would like to add a contribution or comment on an existing one do so NOW. I have put several new bits in since publication and before trying Tom's patience once again ...... Is there anything else that you would like to say? Don't worry if you are not used to writing or don't like doing it. I'll make something of it, I promise and no-one will know.
My DIRECT email which is open to ANYONE to reply to is
paul.croxson@ntlworld.com.
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Many thanks
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