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The future of HowToGAMIT

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard J. Barbalace)
Tue Jul 11 17:30:35 1995

To: rjbarbal@MIT.EDU
Cc: tlw@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 17:30:11 EDT
From: "Richard J. Barbalace" <rjbarbal@MIT.EDU>


Hello, all.

Last year, HowToGAMIT was saved by a plea for help, but it sounds like
(see below message) that this year TCA will not be able to publish the
book at all.  I'm interested in seeing the book continue since I think
it is a valuable resource for MIT students, but I also know that
publishing HowToGAMIT has many difficulties (since I was one of the
people who worked on it last year).

One possibility to save HowToGAMIT is for another service organization
to take over its publication.  I am interested in hearing if people
think APO would be able and willing to assist in publishing the book.
If people have opinions, please email me, not apo-summer.

YiLFS.
+ Richard

bcc: apo-summer

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[7396]  tlw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 07/11/95 11:19 (32 lines)

Subject: The future of HowToGAMIT
Hi all.  It's me, your friendly neighborhood HowToGAMIT editor with her
second annual plea for help.  But it's different this year!
Unfortunately, even if the manpower existed to put the guide together,
TCA no longer has adequate resources to publish or distribute it. This
is one of those really sucky facts of life, as I see it. Three options, as
far as I can tell, remain:

  1: Find another student group willing to take over the guide and see
that it gets published and distributed this year.
  2: Go to the administration and beg for money, in turn relinquishing
final control over the content of the book. 
  3: Put the information on-line, accessible on the World Wide Web.

I am personally in favor of the last option. It has disavantages, but
several advantages as well, including the end of pleas for help to rally
people willing to help publish each year. 

The second idea is perfectly viable, except that it requires someone to
go to administration. Also, while HowToGAMIT is not a horribly radical
guide, it has been nice to be free of control by the adminstration. 

The first idea is great, but finding another group to take over is not
something I know how to do. Go door-to-door? Er, activity-to-activity?
Nah.

Time is also running out before freshman get here in the fall.  Right now
I'm looking for feedback, suggestions, comments, etc, etc... that might
be useful in moving forward with the project. Email me, tlw@mit.edu.
Thanks!

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