BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
On June 29 Peggy Brundy sent Pathfinder the index of Sexism and Science in electronic format. It was the last piece of the body of the book, written by Evelyn Reed and published by Pathfinder Press, that supporters of the communist movement produced in digital form. This is the second title being reprinted as a joint product of volunteers and Pathfinder's print shop. It is due for delivery on July 8.

"Within a day we'll send Pathfinder Rosa Luxemburg Speaks digitized," said Brundy in a telephone interview from her home in Oakland, California, July 1. "I am now checking the formatting of several chapters." Brundy is a new member of a steering committee based in the San Francisco Bay Area that organizes supporters of the communist movement around the world to put into electronic format Pathfinder's entire back list of some 350 titles.

The digital files of the books are then used to produce printing plates through modern computer-to-plate (CTP) technology, bypassing labor-intensive, highly skilled, and costly processes such as stripping film. This new method of production will allow Pathfinder to keep its arsenal in stock through short runs that cost less and with a smaller and less complex print shop.

The number of volunteers has grown rapidly in the last month, from 96 at the beginning of June to 137 now, according to Brundy.

Formatting of Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, the final stage of preparation of a book's electronic files, was done in its entirety by Robbie Scherr, a supporter of the Socialist Workers Party in Seattle. "It took us less than a week to format this book, check it, and correct errors," she said. Scherr has a job in desktop publishing during the day and volunteers her time to digitize Pathfinder books after work.

"We feel the urgency to do this quickly because of what is happening around the world," said Scherr. "One example is the response Pathfinder books got at the recent Tehran bookfair."

Volunteer organizers are planning to finish putting in electronic format another four books in July - American Labor Struggles, Women and the Cuban Revolution, Writings of Leon Trotsky: 1932, and Leon Trotsky Speaks. At an expanded meeting of the steering committee in Oakland, California, June 19-21, they also adopted a plan to produce an average of 10 titles per month for the last half of 1998. This is what's needed to keep pace with the rate of books and pamphlets going out of stock at the publishers current average rate of sales. All reprints of titles Pathfinder publishes, or is responsible for keeping in print and distributing, will now be printed using CTP technology, as joint products of volunteers and the print shop.

Print shop workers Eva Braiman, Bruce Kimball, Francisco Picado, and Bernie Senter took part in the meeting along with the members of the Bay Area steering committee. In addition, Toni Gorton, a laid-off auto worker in Detroit who is designing the templates for digital formatting of the books and has designed many of the Pathfinder book covers over the last decade; SWP leader Norton Sandler, a member of the International Association of Machinists in San Francisco, who has taken on the responsibility for the party's Political Committee to work with the volunteer organizers in the Bay Area; Margaret Jayko and Peggy Brundy, two of the volunteers in the Bay Area who have taken increasing responsibility for organizing aspects of the project; and the author of this article took part.

By the end of the meeting, Brundy joined the steering committee, which also includes Ruth Cheney, Jerry Gardner, and Tom Tomasko.

"The only way to accomplish the necessarily much- increased pace and scope of book production is by organizing every volunteer, in a much more timely and effective manner," said Cheney, organizer of the Bay Area steering committee, in a letter to volunteers (see excerpts below).

Drawing dozens of volunteers outside the Bay Area into taking new levels of responsibility, such as organizing the proofreading and formatting of entire books, "is what we set out to do after our three-day special meeting," said Brundy.

Seven volunteers in four cities in the United States and one in England have now agreed to do formatting. Some, like Janice Prescott in New York who works in desktop publishing, already have this skill from their jobs.

Response to `call to action'
Within days of the June 26 letter, a number of people responded to the call by the steering committee to join a team that will put into electronic format the covers of Pathfinder books - a new task the volunteer organizers decided to take on.

"I have checked around and found someone who could help me learn Photoshop. We could get the software at a university discount. We could also get a scanner," said Anne Chase-Stapleton in a note to Cheney. "I do have good materials on book design, and have done brochures, newspaper ad layout, newsletters and graphic design for small businesses."

Stapleton, who lives in the outskirts of Seattle, now teaches art in college. Others who volunteered to join the team that will digitize book covers, which often involves redesigning, include Robin Maise from New York, who has a job as a desktop artist; and Greg Sack in Cincinnati who has worked in graphic arts for 25 years. Sack has also designed and painted many banners for SWP conventions and conferences over the years, as well as for other political activities.

At the Oakland meeting, the steering committee approved a proposal by Toni Gorton that volunteers will reconstruct digitally the design of most book covers on Pathfinder's back list. "This is much preferable to various scanning methods - copydot scanning of existing film or scanning of the previous printing," said Gorton. "It will be less costly and the quality of the final product will definitely be better."

As has been the case with other aspects of the project, volunteers who join the designing team are expected to use their own resources, or funds they can raise, to purchase needed computer equipment and software or finance travel, telephone calls, and other needs.

In a telephone interview on July 1, Stapleton said the reason so many supporters of the communist movement have stepped forward to help produce Pathfinder books is because of the pick up in the class struggle and the response Pathfinder books and the Militant is getting among working people in the United States and around the world. She had just heard on radio the news of the 40,000-strong demonstration by construction workers in New York. "There is a whole new mood in politics," she said.  
 
 
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