Where’s the Museum and Pin marks?
I am pleased to see that briarpress.org has now grown to over 60,000 registered members. Hopefully with the generous participation of so many of our members, we are responding to some of your issues and concerns. Â Congratulations and thanks to all who have been a part of this process.Â
However, many have asked, “Where’s the Museum and Pin Mark section?” Â
My first answer is to those who are not familiar with building and maintaining a site of this scope and complexity: time and money.Â
My second answer is for those who are familiar with coding and maintaining interactive sites: time and money. But it is more complicated than that. Normally sites of this size are designed, built, and maintained by a team of at least 4 or 5 people. The staff at Briar Press consists of just two people. Briar Press was a gift to me from Eric, who designed and built 5 versions which have been online for over 15 years. During that time he finished college and grad school, and now has his own business where he travels a lot and works late nights and weekends. Â
He is now paying for some of the coding to be done by someone else, and at the same time trying to finish the design work himself. But coding changes as fast as as the Internet evolves, and to bring the Museum and Pin Mark section into this current version would not only be too time consuming, but too costly, and it would continue to be outdated and too difficult to manage.Â
Thus we are taking the next step forward now - trying to streamline the site so that there is more user involvement, and translating it into a new programming language that is much easier to write and much smoother to run. The Museum and Pin Mark section will be a part of the new version.
I can’t give you a timetable yet, but the historical information and photos which many of you have contributed, have not been lost. We miss these sections as much as you do and are hoping to find the time and resources to complete and expand the site as originally envisioned.Â
To all who have supported us from the beginning, and those who are just discovering the world of letterpress, I take this occasion to express my appreciation for your patience, loyalty, and most of all your willingness to share your enthusiasm and experience with others.
Elizabeth Nevin
Briar Press
briarpress.org
Thanks for the update—much appreciated. Will look forward to seeing this re-born down the road…esp. the pin mark archive. Kind regards, ~ Dave Churchman, Indianapolis
Here is an idea. If all 30,000 members sent $1.00 or more donation through PayPal to Briar Press we would probably speed up the return of the museum and pin mark sections tremendously. I will be sending mine.
I don’t do PayPal - what’s your snailmail address? I imagine you do take checks (and preferably for more than $1)
platenpress & BillWhitley - I am very grateful for your immediate show of support, but I am afraid that my letter of explanation to those who have asked about the Museum and Pin Mark section may have sounded more like a fundraising appeal rather than an explanation.
The new coding has indeed started and we will be testing it ourselves in the next few months so that we can estimate the savings in time and money by switching to this new programming language. But that is the predictable part. What is not predictable is that Eric has just been transferred to San Francisco for a number of months or longer, and he has yet to find out what his schedule will be and how much time he will have for the design aspects of Briar Press.
Indeed, when the time comes, the idea from platenpress would be most welcome. However, right now, until we come up with a plan and a projected release time, we feel that we would not want to receive a significant amount of money that we would feel obliged to refund.
From time to time we do receive small donations which help offset our current expenses and we thank those people who have given us their support, but at this time we truly appreciate the fundraising initiative, but think it makes more sense to make the request at a time when we have more a more specific product and information. Your participation and encouragement are what keep us motivated to continue the work.
Hello, i am new to this web site and am having a problem figuring out what it is all about. Some of things I have seen and read bring back many memories. Letterpress is not new to me. I was in printing for 30 years, working as a typographer, with experience in linotype, monotype and handset and would be interested in exchanging past experiences or passing on what knowledge I can remember.
Hi Charles,
The Briarpress site is a forum for people interested in anything that has to do with letterpress printing. The members consist of tradesmen/women who have a lifetime of experience, to students recently introduced to the process at a college or university. On the site there is a wide variety of experience represented, and no lack of opinions on any particular subject that is fielded to the members. I’m sure your expertise will be appreciated.
Paul
Welcome Charles, good to have another old compositor on the site, you must be old to have set hand type. I ran linotypes and set hand type, but never touched a monotype, so many moving parts, i could never think that fast, its amazing that so many linotypes have survived this long. Good Luck Dick G.
I just want to say Thank you.
I have been browsing this site periodically for 7-8 years. While I miss the Museum, i completely understand as I have experience in these maters.
Elizabeth:
I hope I can contact you thru this page—can’t find any other way.
Earlier, I submitted a Classified Ad + $25 & when I reviewed it, no photo appeared. I then resubmitted it (with no more $) & still didn’t get the image. The ad has little value without the image,
I believe that I followed the correct procedure—-so what’s to be done?
Stan Harris
OKLAHOMA A & .jpg
It looks like there are spaces in the filename — if you remove them I bet it will work.
Bob
Try removing the ampersand (&)