The Board of Directors of Ithaca Hours, acting on a course set years ago, has decided that last year's print Directory will be the final one.

The resources put into the print Directory will instead go to enhance the online Directory, and to pursue new efforts, including the hiring of a staffer, and the opening of a public office, perhaps with space for displays and promotions by Hours members.

From 1991 - 2000, Hours printed a quarterly newsletter/directory to update member rolls. The cost and waste of such frequent publication led to the decision to print one annual directory, saving much time, effort, money, and paper.

The downside was that members could only be added (or removed) once per year. The Board's thinking was that this limitation was the same faced by the phone book yellow pages, so Hours could probably abide with it. Besides, the work involved in the quarterly publication led the Board to the conclusion that it could either run a currency system, or publish a quarterly newsletter, but not both.

The annual print Directory was less work, but still expensive, inefficient, and wasteful. Like the quarterly newsletter/directory, it must be entirely replicated even when there are few changes. And whatever changes there are cannot be made in a timely way.

The Board always had the idea that eventually an online Directory would be the sole Directory. Our concern, back in 2000, was that many people were not connected with online capacity. We foresaw a day when that would change. Now, it has. The price of personal computers has dropped significantly in that time. Online access is free and readily available at the library.

The Board is planning to have some type of printed material for promotion of Hours. It will most likely be in the form of a brochure. It will be designed with maximal lifespan in mind.

As with all matters, the Board welcomes your comments, suggestions, and help.

Stephen Burke
for the Ithaca Hours Board