STC PMC Newsletter November/December 2004

1. V olu me 38
Num b er 3
N ov emb er/ Decem b er 2 0 04
STC Scholarships in Technical
Communication Available
id you know that the
STC has an established
program of scholarships
in the areas of technical
writing, editing, graphic design,
interface, and Web design? These
scholarships are designed to assist
students who are pursuing
established degree programs in
some aspect of technical
communication. Each year the STC
provides four scholarships of $1000
each toward tuition and expenses.
Two awards are granted to
graduate students and two to
undergraduates.
You are eligible to apply for one
of these scholarships if you meet
the following criteria:
❏ You have completed at least
one year of post-secondary
education.
❏ You are a full-time student,
either as a graduate students
working toward a Master’s or
Doctor’s degree, or an
undergraduate student working
toward a Bachelor’s degree.
❏ You have at least one full year
of academic work remaining to
complete your degree program,
although under exceptional
circumstances an award may be
granted to a student for the final
half-year.
❏ You are studying communica-
tion of information about technical
subjects. Other majors, such as
general journalism, electronic
communication engineering,
computer programming, creative
writing, or entertainment, are not
eligible.
Applications must be received by
February 15 of the year for which
the scholarship is needed.
Graduate students must notify the
committee of their acceptance in a
graduate program by March 20.
Applicants will be notified by mail of
the committee’s decision no later
than April 15.
For more information and an
application, check out the STC
website (http://www.stc.org/Word_
Files/scholarshipInfo.doc).
D
Contents
STC Scholarships in Technical
Communication Available
__________________________ 1
Editor’s Voice
Life Can Get in the Way
By Lori Corbett ___________ 2
President’s Podium
Transforming Your
Membership
By Steven Lungren _______ 3
Director-Sponsor Notes
Get Ready: It’s a Hurricane
By Rahel Bailie, Region 7
Director-Sponsor _________ 4
September Meeting Review
Using Personas to Connect
with Your Audience
By Barrie Byron __________ 5
Crossword Puzzle
By Zsolt Olah ____________ 6
Book Review by Al Brown
A History of Reading
__________________________ 7
Membership as of September 30, 2004
Total Members 17,980
Members residing in the U.S. 15,357
Member of Philadelphia Metro Chapter 371
Members residing in Canada 1,595
Members residing elsewhere 1,028
Total # of chapters*
*
includes 33 student chapters
147

2. November/December 2004 2 NEWS & VIEWS
NEWS & VIEWS
Submissions and Reprints
You may reprint original
material appearing in NEWS & VIEWS,
as long as you acknowledge the
source and author and send us a
copy of the publication
containing the reprint.
ISSN 1078-9952. NEWS &
VIEWS, published six times per
year, is the official publication of
the Philadelphia Metro Chapter
of STC. We encourage letters,
articles, and other items for
publication. Note: By submitting
an article, you implicitly grant a
license to this newsletter to run
the article and for other STC
publications to reprint it without
permission. Unless otherwise
noted, copyrights for all
newsletter articles belong to the
authors. The design and layout
of this newsletter are copyright
STC, 2004.
Address submissions or
comments to Lori Corbett,
Managing Editor, NEWS & VIEWS,
22 Creekside Drive, Sanatoga,
PA, 19464,
phone (610) 382-8683;
email stcmember@aol.com.
Toolbox
We produce NEWS & VIEWS
with Frame-Maker 6.0 and
Acrobat 6.0 on various Pentium
computers.
Newsletter Staff
Managing Editor
Lori Corbett
stcmember@aol.com
Layout Editor
Rose Marie Sosnowy
(610) 792-4031
Associate Editor
Al Brown (856) 222-7427
Rebecca Richardson
rebecca.one@verizon.net
Mary Shaw
mary@ladywriter.net
Also Contributing to This Issue
Rahel Bailie
Barrie Byron
Zsolt Olah
Mike Sharp
EDITOR’S VOICE
Life Can Get in the Way
By Lori Corbett
’m sitting here, writing under
duress. You see, I’m moving
this week. Yippee! All my
books are packed and I’m
sitting amid boxes and empty
bookshelves. Still have to pack up
my clothes closet and the kitchen
though.
Since I’ve been in Pennsylvania
for the past two and half years, I’ve
been in an apartment—a lovely
apartment—but an apartment
nonetheless. I finally took the
plunge and put money down on a
townhouse. Gulp, more money
than this gal from North Carolina
and Florida ever expected to spend
for a house, that’s for
sure.
So now I’m about
three-quarters packed
and I’ve got to get this
newsletter to Rose
Marie because “the show must go
on.” There is so much going on in
the world of STC too. One can
hardly ignore it. The transformation
changes are going to affect all of
us. I, for one, think that if we
approach these changes with the
right mindset, our chapter, and
indeed, all of STC, will benefit.
The question for each of us is
what value do we place on our
membership in the STC, the
Philadelphia-Metro chapter, and
any SIGs we might also be involved
with? I certainly can’t attempt to
speak for anyone but myself. So,
since I have the opportunity, I’d
like to say just a couple of things
about this subject.
Among other personal things, I
identify myself as a user advocate
first and a technical communicator
second. My membership in STC is
an inherent ingredient in that self
identification. Whenever I connect
with my fellow STC members, I
always receive the benefit of
learning about how we all face
many of the same challenges and
deal with many of the same issues.
I am lifted up by this knowledge.
Attending this past week’s
presentation by John Hawkins on
an alternative single-source
solution to XML, I was reminded
about this very fact. I returned to
work the next day renewed and
reinvigorated to be the best user
advocate I can be.
Yes, my membership in STC and
in the Philadelphia Metro
chapter is very
important to me. Now
that I’ve gotten used to
working online about
90% of the time, I am
seriously considering
the E-Membership alternative. I
think my bookshelves will
appreciate it. I don’t think I’ve
thrown away a single issue of
Intercom or Technical
Communication since I joined STC
in 1988. Having a searchable online
database of articles will be
invaluable to me.
If you would like to talk about
how you can become more involved
or what your membership in STC
means to you, I would love to hear
from you. Hmmmm... This brings
up another issue. I am giving up my
Comcast account and will be
converting to DSL in my new house.
However, as we go to print, I do not
yet have that contact information.
But all is not lost. In the meantime,
you can contact me via my AOL
account at stcmember@aol.com.
I
“the show
must go on”

3. November/December 2004 3 NEWS & VIEWS
PRESIDENT’S PODIUM
Transforming Your Membership
By Steven Lungren
he transformation of STC
is bringing new
membership options to
you this fall. You’ll have
more options available to you, and
these options are intended to
provide a better match for the
different ways that members
interact with the organization.
You’ll need to figure out how you
will get the most value from your
STC membership when you renew,
and the new categories of
membership may make your
decision easier. Or, they may make
it more confusing.
In the “New Individual
Membership Categories: Costs and
Benefits” table (page 8), you can
see that your non-student STC
membership now has three levels,
Classic, Limited, and E-
Membership, each at different cost.
Two of them—Classic
Membership and E-Membership—
offer you incremental SIG and
chapter membership in an a la
carte fashion. The Classic Member-
ship most nearly represents the
type of membership that we have
had up to now. The E-Membership
reduces your cost by ten dollars,
but takes away your printed
publications—you will only be able
to view them online. The Limited
Membership is restricted to STC
publications only, with no option to
join any chapter or SIG.
Which option looks good to you?
I can tell you that there is some
information missing from the table.
It doesn’t tell you that because of
the Transformed method for
distributing funds from the STC to
the various chapters and SIGs, the
resources that have been available
to those entities will change. In
most cases, the STC will probably
provide less financial support to
chapters. That financial support
comes in the form of rebates to the
chapter from the STC based on
chapter membership statistics.
Your Philadelphia Metro Chapter
routinely underwrites a large
portion of our program meeting
and annual conference costs. Even
though our committees are
conscientious and considerate of
costs when planning chapter
events, the chapter loses a
significant amount of money on
each monthly meeting in order to
keep the cost reasonable for our
members. Similarly, the STC-PMC
Annual Conference in March has
never broken even. It’s too bad
that more of you don’t take
advantage of this benefit.
On the other hand, the
registration fee was extraordinarily
low for the Pacesetter award
winning, day-long conference of
workshops and presentations that
featured the internationally
respected Ann Rockley.
Another bit of information that
the table doesn’t show you is that
the new membership categories
will cause additional price levels to
be created for your local chapter
events.
STC members who are also
chapter members will get the best
discount for program meetings, the
conference, and other chapter
events. STC members who are not
also members of the chapter, such
as a person with a Limited
Membership or an E-Membership
with only SIGS, will be required to
T
STC-PMC LEADERSHIP
Address correspondence for
the Philadelphia Metro chapter
of STC to STC-PMC, P.O. Box
60069, Philadelphia, PA
19102-0069.
SOCIETY FOR TECHNICAL
COMMUNICATION
Mission Statement:
Designing the Future of Technical
Communication
The Society for Technical
Communication (STC) is an
organization dedicated to advancing
technical communication.
Membership is open to those
employed in, interested in, or
concerned with the profession of
technical writing, publishing, or
associated disciplines. Contact STC
at 901 N. Stuart St., Suite 904,
Arlington, VA 22203,
(703) 522-4114 or
http://www.stc.org.
Chapter Officers
President
Steve Lungren (267) 620-2421
Vice President
Jane Phillips (856) 608-7200
Treasurer
Gary Samartino
(610) 701-0577
Secretary
Jill Cassidy (215) 590-9815
Immediate Past President
Nad Rosenberg (856) 484-6598
Region 1 Director/Sponsor
Jon Baker (978) 443-3049
Chapter Committee Managers
Employment
Giacomo DeAnnuntis
(215) 482-1255
Programs
Julia Margulies
(484) 344-2448
Membership
Mike Sharp (856) 854-2141
NEWS & VIEWS
Lori Corbett
(610) 382-8683
Nominating
Mike Sharp (856) 854-2141
Website
Lois Shank lbshank@ptd.net
Competition
Donn DeBoard (484) 595-6216
Marc Green (610) 358-0631
(Continued on page 8)

4. NEWS & VIEWS 4 November/December 2004
STC-PMC CALENDAR
Unless otherwise noted, all
meetings follow this schedule:
Networking: 6:00 to 6:30 p.m.
Dinner: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Program: 7:30 to 9 p.m.
November 18. Changing
Focus: “Instructional Design
as a Career Path,” presented
by Constance Bille.
Instructional design is one
path technical communicators
sometimes have an opportunity
to follow. During this
presentation, you will learn how
to assess your skill set in
relation to the skills required for
the instructional design field.
You will also learn some
strategies for acquiring the skills
you might not yet include in
your personal skill set.
Location: Philadelphia
University, Downs Auditorium,
Henry Ave. and School House
Lane, Philadelphia, PA
January 20. Global
Communication: “Where in the
World Is Your Project?”
presented by Heather Petit,
Senior Technical
Communication Consultant at
First Consulting Group (FCG)
and Marcia Jacquette,
Independent Technical
Communication Consultant.
Like it or not, we're
communicating globally.
Mergers, acquisitions,
partnerships, new clients. More
and more of our work requires
working with someone offshore;
more often than not, we're
frustrated and disappointed by
the experience. What can we do
to ensure that we can focus on
the technical issues without
getting clobbered by the cultural
issues? Join us for a discussion
of business etiquette in the
global economy.
Location: TBD
DIRECTOR-SPONSOR NOTES
Get Ready: It’s a Hurricane
By Rahel Bailie, Region 7 Director-
Sponsor
n a recent conversation with
an STC community leader,
we discussed the changing
face of technical communi-
cation and the implication for STC
members in his chapter. His
geographic area has been particu-
larly hard hit, with a number of
community members working
survival jobs until they can re-enter
the technical communication field,
or holding onto jobs they would
otherwise have outgrown.
Technical writers, he worries, are
hunkering down in their cubicles
and he fears that when they come
up for air, they will no longer have
a skill set that has sufficient
currency in the marketplace.
To say that the changes in the
field of technical communication
are of hurricane proportions is not
an exaggeration. Our workplaces,
our careers, peers in our STC
network—if we haven’t been
affected personally, we have been
affected indirectly. Some of us have
seen our jobs swept away, others
have had work debris dumped on
us, and ill-implemented changes
often bring huge clean-ups from
projects gone awry.
What concerns me is hearing
that the response to this flurry of
change is to sit tight and keep
working. Watching Hurricane
Frances, then Ivan, sweep through
the Caribbean and across Florida,
we watched the CNN reports of
people jumping to action: board up
the windows to protect the home,
then get out of the storm’s pro-
jected path. It involves a lot of hard
work, and a fast response, but the
pay-off is to get to safety, and be
able to bounce back. When we see
the eye of a storm moving toward
us, is it in our best interest to sit
tight and wait it out? Or should we
be hustling to move our skill sets
into a safer zone, where we’ll be
able to bounce back once the worst
of the economic storm has passed?
Economists talk about how, as
the jobs we know move around the
globe, we must be prepared to
“move up the value chain.” This
means that we need to add more
value as strategic contributors. We
can do this by looking up the
technical communication profes-
sion chain.
For example:
❏ Writers can look at other
content develop-ment skills that
bring more value to the workplace,
or expand their skill set to usability
practices.
❏ Editors can look at the
localization and internationaliza-
tion field to see where they could
add skills.
❏ Marketing Communication
writers could expand to a broader
set of communication products.
❏ Departments can learn how to
use content management systems
to add value to their work.
❏ Usability folks can apply their
principles to interaction design.
❏ Help writers can expand their
horizons to interaction design.
In other words, we can look for
the logical expansion of our skill
sets.
How we move up the profes-
sional food chain isn’t by staying in
our cubicles with our noses to the
grindstone. We protect our careers
and our futures through continual
professional development, net-
I
(Continued on page 5)

5. November/December 2004 5 NEWS & VIEWS
STC AND RELATED EVENTS
AROUND THE WORLD
November 12–17. The
American Society for
Information Science and
Technology (ASIST) annual
meeting, “Managing and
Enhancing Information:
Cultures and Conflicts,” in
Providence, RI. For more
information, see the ASIST
website: www.asis.org.
November 18–23. The National
Council of Teachers of English
(NCTE) annual convention at the
Indianapolis Convention Center.
For more information, contact
NCTE at public_info@ncte.org.
January 15. Submission
deadline for abstracts for the
Fifth International Congress on
Peer Review and Biomedical
Publication, which will be held
September 17-19 in Chicago.
For more information check out
the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA)
website at www.jama-peer.org.
January 15–16. Region 2
Conference at the Four Points
by Sheraton hotel in
Williamsburg, VA.
SEPTEMBER MEETING REVIEW
Using Personas to Connect with
Your Audience
By Barrie Byron
InfoSeeker: Nancy
… 44 years old
… 8 years as a Technical Writer at a
global scientific manufacturing
corporation
… Prior career: 4 years as an English
teacher at local high school
… Spends 7 of 8 work hours each
day on a computer
… Graduated with Bachelors Degree
in English from state university
… Married, with two teenage children
… Drives 23 miles to work each way
… Listens to NPR in her car
… Uses the web at work to research
industry-related content and to
check her personal web mail
account
… Manages the middle school PTA
mailing list and correspondence
… Is an avid bird watcher
hy do these facts
about an arbitrary
person named Nancy
matter? These
specific details personify one of us:
the technical writer!
On Thursday, September 23,
Whitney Quesenbery, of Whitney
Interactive Design, presented a
program titled “Using Personas to
Connect with Your Audience.” We
learned how creating and using a
persona can help us make design
decisions, design documentation
sets, and bring our users alive.
A persona is a portrait of a
typical user based on data. A
persona has the characteristics of a
“real person” and represents
important demographics. A
persona is specific, not generalized.
A persona is hypothetical, not real.
Effective personas are often
accompanied by photos, usually of
a model in a representative setting.
Nancy, our hypothetical
technical writer, specifically defines
the information seeker—educated
communication professional with a
prior teaching career.
By giving Nancy a name, age,
occupation, hobbies, marital
status, and other details, this
“story” gives us easily remembered
information we can use to organize
facts and transmit knowledge. We
can remember and discuss Nancy
more easily than we can remember
an impersonal collection of
demographic data.
Personas help us connect our
work to real people. Using Nancy in
scenarios and stories helps us
organize facts in a new way. In
design sessions, Nancy can help
designers work through design
problems by considering how she
would prefer to accomplish a task,
not just how she would perform a
task.
Personas, like all of us, have a
point of view and can even attend
design sessions, comment on
design issues, and help us keep our
audience in view.
Whitney Quesenbery expertly
develops new concepts for product
designs. She conveyed the idea
that personas are an excellent
shorthand method of bringing the
user into our everyday work life. I,
for one, enjoyed creating the
technical writer persona, Nancy, for
this article. I will certainly use
personas in future user analysis
work. Nancy has become a dear
friend and she’s never far from my
mind.
W
working, and life-long learning. We
can learn a lot about what we want
to do—or even about what we may
want to eliminate as a career
enhancement—by staying
informed about developments in
related fields, attending STC
meetings to network with our
peers (and the peers with whom
we’d like to keep company), and by
continually gaining and honing
new skills. It’s the surest way to
survive the storms that regularly
sweep through the umbrella
profession that we call technical
communication.
Get Ready: It’s a Hurricane
(Continued from page 4)

6. NEWS & VIEWS 6 November/December 2004
CROSSWORD PUZZLE
By Zsolt Olah
Solution on page 7
1
H
2
A
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L
4
L O
5
W
6
E
7
E N
8
H
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A
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Y A R D
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O X X
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S I X
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P A
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S M C E
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I
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H A
18
R I
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K A
20
R
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I
22
R
23
A M
24
B U N C T I O U S
25
L I F E T I M E N O
I
26
T Z
27
M
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O I S T
29
N
30
O T
31
R E E
32
E G O R
33
K P
34
A R R
35
E N N O
36
E
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O B
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X T
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E P
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D R A
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C U
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L A
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O R I
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O A
47
E G O M A N I A C
ACROSS
1. The only time when turkeys
sympathize with pumpkins
8. Half-laugh
10. Space in the back
11. OXX
12. VI
13. Pennsylvania
14. How most of our system of
principals end
17. Rhyming harakiri
22. Boisterous and disorderly
25. Longlasting type of experience
26. TS
27. Slightly wet.
29. Futuristic subway stop at the urban
forrest
32. In the kitchen cupboard: the shelf,
especially as distinct from the
world and other shelves
33. KP
34. End of a famous committee
36. EO
38. Extra extension
40. EP
41. Rural blood sucker
44. Hungarian name. Backwards:
metal.
46. OA
47. Shelf-obsessed (see across 32).
DOWN
1. Click target
2. Car people
3. Left and Right
4. LDI
5. Lecherous pursuer
6. EX
7. Boredom killer
8. Greeting
9. Wood cutting, finger chopping tool
12. If you liked Finding Nemo, this
creature will definitely make you
shed tears
15. Enthusiastic photo-beetle
16. Monetary fund
18. RCM
19. KI
20. Beginning of Russia
21. Standardized tropical resort, which
is identical in all directions
23. A little bits of intelligence
24. Exist
28. OG
33. TE
30. Well-known musical browser
31. RA
35. Test
37. OA
39. ... Arbor
40. ...of time
41. Act
42. CE
43. LO
45. OI
UPCOMING STC WEB AND
TELEPHONE SEMINARS
Upcoming STC Web and
Telephone Seminars
All of these seminars are held
from 1:00–2:30 p.m. Each
seminar costs $99 per site for
STC members. (The nonmember
rate is $149 per site.) A site can
have only one phone connection
and one computer connection.
In addition to offering high-
quality training at an affordable
price, STC's seminar series
features a quick and simple
online registration process. For
detailed information about any
of the following seminars, go to
stc.webex.com.
November 10. Introducing
Windows 'Longhorn' Help,
presented by Char James-Tanny
(Web-Telephone)
December 8. Highlighting
Hazards: Mastering Warnings
and Error Messages, presented
by Leah Guren (Telephone)
January 12. Preemptive Project
Planning, presented by John
Hedke (Web-Telephone)
January 26. A Pound of Salt, a
Pint of Blood—Getting the Most
Out of Your Contractors to
Ensure Project Success,
presented by Tom White
(Web-Telephone)
Guidelines: Not
your typical
crossword. Some
of the definitions
may be vague,
associative, even
funny. A single
word
CAPITALIZED
(e.g., across 11) is
your guide. Use it
‘as is.’

7. November/December 2004 7 NEWS & VIEWS
BOOK REVIEW By Al Brown
A History of Reading
Steven Roger Fischer, 2003.
London. Reaktion Books.
[ISBN 1-86189-160-1. 384 pages.
$20.97.]
et’s face it: Regardless of
the cool technology we
use—interactivity, XML,
RoboHelp, single
sourcing, personas—virtually all of
what we as a profession do comes
down to reading. But what does it
mean to read? Obviously it has to
do with language. Is it decoding a
record of spoken language? Fluent
readers bypass the aural
component and go directly from
the visual representation on the
page to its meaning. We think of
reading as the cornerstone of
civilization, but it wasn’t always
that way. What is reading? How did
it develop? Is it always the same?
What is the future of reading in the
electronic age?
These are the questions Steven
Fischer addresses in A History of
Reading. It is the final volume in a
trilogy comprising A History of
Language (1999) and A History of
Writing (2001), which I have not
read, but am now eager to. Fischer,
Director of the Institute of
Polynesian Languages and
Literatures in Auckland, New
Zealand, provides a brilliant survey
of the history of an activity we all
take for granted.
To summarize the beginnings of
reading, which is obviously tangled
up with the development of writing,
is to engage in gross over-
simplification. In Mesopotamia,
markings used as memory aids for
transactions and inventories
evolved into complex legal and
governmental records. To add a
local note, the University of
Pennsylvania has one of the world’s
largest collections of Sumerian clay
tablets, on which these records
were kept. Only later were they
used to write down what we would
call literature, that is, orally recited
histories and stories.
One of the fascinating threads
running through this book is the
way technological innovations
change the nature of reading. One
cluster of these innovations
occurred in the ninth century,
durng what was known as the
Carolingian renaissance, named for
the Holy Roman Emperor
Charlemagne. Until then, most
reading was done aloud, in groups
in public or in monasteries. Among
the educational reforms
Charlemagne instituted was the
development of a new, simpler, and
easier to read script. This
Carolingian miniscule featured
ascenders and descenders for the
first time, which made words easier
to recognize by their shape. The
addition of spaces between words
(a feature borrowed from Arabic
translations of Greek texts) and
punctuation marks (an innovation
of Irish scribes), and the regulari-
zation of a number of other aspects
of writing, made it much easier to
recognize words visually. Thus
reading became less laborious, and
it was more practical to read
silently, rather than out loud.
This leads to the second major
theme of the book, namely, as
Fischer puts it in his chapter titles,
the transition of reading from “The
Papyrus Tongue” to “The
Parchment Eye”: the oral to the
visual, the loud to the silent, the
public to the private, the external
L
STC-PMC MEMBER
UPDATES
By Michael Sharp, Membership
Chairperson
It’s been a while since we
listed our new members,
reinstated members, and
members who have transferred
to STC-PMC from another
chapter. The STC-PMC extends
a warm welcome to all of you.
New Members:
❏ Richard Berrigan Jr.
❏ Shirl Ann Evans
❏ Xiang Gao
❏ Carl Husa
❏ Christopher Mazza
❏ Yvonne McCleary
❏ Ray Pidge
❏ Ryan E Rasmussen
❏ Lori Wilson
❏ Samuel C Wooters
Reinstated Members:
❏ Jonathan W Acheson
❏ Lynn H Cherrin
❏ Patricia Gage
❏ Randall J Hechinger
❏ Melissa Karakashian
❏ Michael M Mowad
❏ William A Shook
❏ David Voss
❏ Lori Wilson
Members Transferring from
Another Chapter:
❏ David B Kocur
(Continued on page 9)
Puzzle Solution from page 6:
1
H
2
A
3
L
4
L O
5
W
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E
7
E N
8
H
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A
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Y A R D
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O X X
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S I X
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P A
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I
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S M C E
E
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I
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H A
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R I
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K A
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R
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I
22
R
23
A M
24
B U N C T I O U S
25
L I F E T I M E N O
I
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T Z
27
M
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O I S T
29
N
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O T
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R E E
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E G O R
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K P
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A R R
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E N N O
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E
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O B
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X T
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A
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E P
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D R A
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C U
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L A
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N
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O R I
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O A
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E G O M A N I A C

8. NEWS & VIEWS 8 November/December 2004
pay more to attend chapter
functions than someone who is a
member of the chapter, but less
than someone who is not an STC
member.
This transformed pricing
structure is necessitated primarily
by the fact that chapter
membership includes additional
benefits that aren’t in the
Membership Categories table. It is
also influenced by the way funding
is calculated and distributed by the
STC.
How the transformation impacts
our chapter financially remains to
be seen. However, when you are
choosing your new membership
level, remember that the extra cost
you pay for the Classic Membership
could be less than the added cost to
attend a local chapter event if you
are not a chapter member.
For example, a very different
pricing structure is already planned
for our March 2005 STC-PMC
Annual Chapter Conference. I can
assure you that membership in the
Philadelphia Metro Chapter will be a
great advantage for you to attend
the conference.
So, your choice of membership
categories comes down to your
perception of the value that you
can get in return for the selected
category. Looking at it logically,
there is no other membership
category that can offer the value of
the Classic Membership, or the
E-Membership with the chapter
option.
Only chapters can offer the
special networking and personal
contacts that can come from
meeting face-to-face. Only
chapters can organize and execute
a full season of monthly
presentations and an annual
conference of the caliber to which
we have become accustomed. Only
the chapters can provide that much
value.
You may ask yourself, “Wow!
How can a chapter provide so much
value? It’s great! But, how can they
do it?”
It’s because of our people and
their location. In a chapter, people
can physically meet, plan, and act
locally. There’s a certain power to
this dynamic that is missing in even
the best of SIGs. When a group of
people can get together and focus
on achieving a goal they can often
surpass their expectations. In the
STC, chapters enable that to
happen. That’s value added.
Transforming Your Membership (Continued from page 3)
New Individual Membership Categories: Costs and Benefits
Membership
Category
Publications Communities
Voting
Privileges
Cost (in USD)
Classic
Membership
Paper copies of Intercom
and Technical
Communication, and
access to the online
versions.
❏ 1 chapter and 1 SIG, or
❏ 3 SIGs
Additional SIGs $5 each;
additional chapters $10 each
Yes U.S. members: 145.00
Canadian members: 145.00 + $15
postage
Overseas members: 145.00 + $35
postage
Retired members* 72.50
*
To qualify, an individual must be retired and have been an STC member for at least 10 years. Retired members are not
counted in the calculation of chapter rebate amounts.
Limited
Membership
Paper copies of Intercom
and Technical
Communication, and
access to the online
versions.
None Yes U.S. members: 125.00
Canadian members: 125.00 + $15
postage
Overseas members: 145.00 + $35
postage
E-Membership Online access to
Intercom and Technical
Communication. No
paper copies
❏ 1 chapter and 1 SIG, or
❏ 3 SIGs
Additional SIGs $5 each;
additional chapters $10 each
Yes U.S. members: 135.00
Canadian members: 135.00
Overseas members: 135.00
Student Online access to
Intercom and Technical
Communication. No
paper copies
❏ 1 student chapter and 1
professional chapter
❏ SIGs available at no cost
Additional chapters $10 each
No U.S. members: 50.00
Canadian members: 50.00
Overseas members: 50.00
(Continued on page 9)

9. November/December 2004 9 NEWS & VIEWS
to the internal. This trend
continued through the Middle Ages.
It led to another major difference in
the nature of reading. Because
reading could now be a private
activity, the reader’s relationship
with the text was no longer
mediated by a third party (in
Europe, normally the Church); the
reader engaged the text directly.
Reading thus became
simultaneously liberating and
subversive. Though less well
known, according to Fischer, the
Carolingian renaissance
revolutionized society and thinking
as much as the invention of
moveable type in the fifteenth
century.
The effect of Gutenberg’s
innovation has been chronicled
numerous times, notably in
Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing
Revolution in Early Modern Europe
(NEWS & VIEWS, November/
December 2001). It triggered the
protestant Reformation and the
Thirty Years War. Fischer also
makes the interesting observation
that printing gave rise to
censorship. In the southern areas
of Europe, where the Church was
strongest, publishing was under
tighter control; the printers in the
northern protestant areas had
more freedom. As a result, these
areas produced more scientific and
technological breakthroughs
because of a freer flow of
information and ideas. According to
Fischer, the suppression of printing
also occurred in Arabic lands with
the result that the art and science
of that culture ceased to flourish.
I particularly like the final
chapter, “Reading the Future,”
partly because Fischer doesn’t
share the view of those like Sven
Birkerts (The Gutenberg Elegies, in
NEWS & VIEWS, April/May, 2004)
who are so wrapped up in books as
objects that they reject reading
using any newer technology. One
result of his historical perspective is
that Fischer recognizes that printed
books were a new and suspect
technology once. He also discusses
recent theories of the role of
reading, for example, the idea that
“humanity may only achieve full
linguistic competence through
reading. The suggestion is
remarkable, given that reading was
humanly elaborated only around
5,700 years ago. If extraordinary
human faculties and powers do lie
dormant until a social innovation
calls them into life, perhaps this
might help to explain humanity’s
constant advancement.” In other
words, there may be an element of
human evolution that transcends
genetics.
A History of Reading represents
interdisciplinary history at its best:
the kind of book that puts its
subject—and our profession—in a
cultural and historical context in a
compelling and engaging way. This
book clearly shows how closely the
present and the future are linked to
the past.
Author’s Note: Special thanks
to Tanya at Strand Book Store in
New York for helping me obtain this
book.
Transforming Your Membership (Continued from page 8)
Looking Forward to Our
Conference in March
The theme for the STC-PMC
Annual Conference on March 19,
2005 is Transforming Your Career.
Every year brings new demands
on our skills, new technology to
learn, new methods of working,
and new ideas to our profession.
How we accept, develop, and grow
with the changes we encounter will
determine how we are able to
transform ourselves professionally
along with our changing career
opportunities in the coming years.
You can look forward to some
surprising and exciting news about
our annual chapter conference
soon!
In the meantime, you are invited
to prepare your proposal to make a
presentation at our conference.
We’re now accepting your
proposals and outlines for
evaluation. If you would like to
present your topic at our annual
conference, contact me for further
details.
If you’re not inclined to make a
presentation or conduct a brief
workshop, you can help us with
sponsorship development for the
conference. We’re looking for
sponsors to help us with their
donations in return for publicity and
exposure at our nationally
recognized conference. We have
several levels of sponsorship
packages to accommodate
different donation levels. If your
company would like to participate
please contact me or our Vice
President Jane Phillips.
You can also participate by
helping with publicity and
promotion, program development/
production, facility and hospitality,
newsletter articles, and other
tasks. Contact me and I will direct
you to the lead person for your area
of interest.
Book Review By Al Brown (Continued from page 7)

10. NEWS & VIEWS 10 November/December 2004
Upcoming Meetings
The information in the following table was correct at the time NEWS & VIEWS was published. Be sure to check
the website (www.stcpmc.org) for details and late-breaking updates to the schedule. For all Thursday meetings,
reservations are due by the Monday before the meeting.
Date Meeting Topic Location
November 18, 2004 Changing Focus: Instructional Design as a Career Path,
presented by Constance Bille
Philadelphia University,
Downs Auditorium
December, 2004 No Meeting This Month—Enjoy Your Holidays!
January 20, 2005 Global Communication: “Where in the World Is Your Project?”
presented by Heather Petit, Senior Technical Communication
Consultant at First Consulting Group (FCG) and Marcia
Jacquette, independent Technical Communication consultant
TBD
February 17, 2005 Lifelong Learning Program TBD
March 19, 2005 Third Annual Philadelphia Metro Conference: Transforming
Your Career with STC-PMC
Penn State University,
Great Valley, PA
April 21, 2005 Knowledge Management TBD
May 8–11, 2005 STC’s 52nd Annual Conference Seattle, WA
May 19, 2005 Business Climate in Philadelphia TBD
June 16, 2005 Marriage of Image and Text TBD
M AN J I RO
I n t e r n at i o n a l
Internationalization
Localization
Translation
• Technical publications
• Multilingual web sites
• Software applications
Call for a free phone consultation
Phone: 267-972-1034
info@manjirointernational.com
www.manjirointernational.com
Dues Renewal Deadline and Rates
The STC office is currently developing a new online dues
renewal form. The office will notify members via email when the
online renewal form is ready.
Printed dues renewal invoices will be mailed in late November
to all members who do not renew their memberships online at
the STC website. For membership dues, STC accepts checks in
U.S. dollars or Canadian equivalent, and American Express,
MasterCard, and VISA payments. Dues payments must be
received by January 1, 2005. (A grace period extends to
February 28, 2005.) Note that only members who pay their dues
by February 28, 2005, are eligible to vote in the STC election.
Deadline for the
January/February 2005 newsletter
is November 29, 2004