EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
Giving credit where credit is dueby Peggy Boyer Long ''Pray for our printer and all of his companions." attributed to Erik Jansson, religious and communitarian leader Jansson's sentiment comes to mind as we go to press with our final issue in this magazine year. His gender reference is outdated. The 19th-century technology his printer would have used is outmoded. And the reading list he imposed on the Swedish residents of Illinois' shortlived Bishop Hill community included only one book. Still, it would seem Jansson knew whom to credit with helping to get the word out. And generations of readers have known whom to blame if they didn't like what was published. When residents of Alton disagreed with Elijah Lovejoy's antislavery editorials, they killed him. But first they destroyed his press — three times. We don't face obstacles that extreme here at Illinois Issues. Nevertheless, a good printer is still a godsend. Ours is Multi-Ad, an employee- owned printing company in Peoria. In the past year, they've come through for us — on time against tough odds — on several occasions. Not only did they hold the press run for our June issue to include the last of the legislative news, they reminded us that our readers rely on the magazine for timely information. Of course, technology speeds production and improves the product. And that technology has changed — is changing — at a rapid rate. Over the past few years, we've developed the capability to send the magazine to the printer electronically — or transmit substitute pages, as we did for the June issue. We now receive articles electronically from writers as far away as Washington, D.C, and Oregon, as we did this month.
To get that job done, we must rely on — trust — our printers. We're thankful for ours. 4 / July/August 1997 Illinois Issues |
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