There has been a steady increase in the pace of work. The scanning of all books and pamphlets is on schedule to be completed by New Year's Day, 2000. In October 16 titles were scanned, leaving 34 books and 3 pamphlets to finish. Once the scanning volunteers are done with this aspect of the work, they can turn their attention to proofreading, formatting, graphics, and creating new indexes. This will give a further impulse to the pace of work.

Since scanning does not perfectly reproduce the text in digital form, every book must be proofread twice to insure the digital form is true to the author's writings and of the highest quality possible. The first proofreading of books has gone so well it is about two months ahead of second reading.

Formatting a book into a more readable style than the previous book is the next step. Volunteer formatters prepared seven titles in October, increasing their work flow by 94 percent in October compared to an average of the previous three months.

Another positive sign of progress is the creeping move downstream of the inevitable production bottlenecks The project is a very complicated effort, requiring volunteers to acquire new skills, even when their regular jobs are completely different. Since the project began, we have confronted and solved many problems at all stages of production.

Today the bottlenecks are concentrated in two of the last steps: indexing and the final editorial check performed by the Pathfinder staff on the text and graphics of each title. The staff at Pathfinder will find ways to conquer the increasing amount of work sent to them. As for the project volunteers, we need more people to involve themselves in helping to create new indexes.

When a book is reformatted, the page numbers often change. That means the index—an important political tool—needs to be accurately reworked to correspond to the new book. This is one of the last steps in production and fast turnaround is important. With more volunteers working on more indexes and smaller parts of the indexes at the same time, we can get the books completed on time. Volunteers who are involved in the first proofreading stage are especially encouraged to join this effort, as they are far ahead in their work.

In October, the Reprint Project delivered five titles on compact disks to Pathfinder Press. They are Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs, Fascism: What It Is & How to Fight It by Leon Trotsky, Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg, and From Lenin to Stalin by Victor Serge, and the Education for Socialists publication From Mississippi to Boston: The Demand for Troops to Enforce Civil Rights.

Tom Tomasko is a member of the Reprint Project steering committee and International Association of Machinists Local 1784.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home