Re: digital SIGNA bulletin?

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Since we are really thinking out into a possible future….

If the bulletins (particularly the old ones) are going to be (or already are) digitized could a CD of them be made for SIGNA to sell as a group?  Maybe a ten-year group to go with the indexes?  If I figured it correctly that amount of information would now cost $82 in paper form.  Maybe the disc version could be in the $20 range to members?

And while I am dreaming, a searchable CD? (or DVD, or whatever form is best for that sort of stuff???)  Color pictures would also be no big deal. 

I have heard that CDs do not last forever (or even ten years) so I do not know if this is a good idea at all.  Just thought I would throw the idea into the conversation.  Maybe the current index, would suffice?  (Maybe that is an urban myth about CD longevity – or lack of.  ???)

I do have to admit that my preference is having a hard copy to take to a more comfortable place than my computer to read.  But if I could search the CD (of DVD) for the parts I wanted to read at the time, and print only those sections out for my current research interest - could work, too.  I am soooo behind in my reading of newsletters and magazines that now, I now only subscribe to publications that are more like reference material when I want to know something from a reliable source – like SIGNA. 

I think the current dues rate for the newsletter and seed exchange are fine.  I pay more for all of my local gardening club memberships and get less from some of them.  Plants, plant related travel, plant information, and other “plant stuff” is just how I spend my discretionary money.

I recently looked at the publications section of the website for the first time.  Could the slide set be digitized?  Not as many people have slide projectors as those that probably can read CDs on their computers.  Also most of my gardening groups locally have switched to digital projectors, though slide projectors are available.  I would think that would be a cheaper arrangement than coping and shipping slides in a carrousel.  

I realize that ideas are much easier to come by than finding a willing, competent and dedicated VOLUNTEER to figure out how to do it and then carry the labor of love to completion for the rest of us. 

Just dreaming….

Debbie Hinchey

In Anchorage where we are worried that it will be too warm and start raining again and melt our wonderful snow cover.  It sounds like the rest of you in the eastern half of the US are getting cold.  The earth seems to be making a major adjustment in the form of a MEGA high pressure system sending us air from the tropics and you air from the North Pole.  (That is my unprofessional meteorological explanation.  Another way to put it is:  if we are extra warm for the season then others are extra cold, and visa versa.)