Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1912 [PAGE 627]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1912]

PROCEEDINGS OP THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

URBANA, April 3,

583

1912.

President Edmund J. James, University of Illinois: MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT—Replying to your. inquiry of March 30, I beg to say that the information you ask naturally falls under three headings: Station publications, press service, and personal correspondence.

STATION PUBLICATIONS.

The following is the plan of publication and distribution of agricultural information from the Experiment Station: The station issues printed matter in two forms: First, the bulletin, which is primarily the report of experiments actually .conducted at this station; second, the circular, whose purpose is to give information which may be needed at some particular time or place and which may or may not arise out of our own experiments. Both of these publications are sent free upon request, either within or without the State. The station mailing list is made up solely of individuals who have requested, personally, the receipt of these publications. No blanket lists are used, and no name is put on because a .friend asks it. When such lists come in the station immediately corresponds with the parties involved, saying that such a friend has requested the addition of their name to our list, stating that our policy is not to add names except upon the request of the individual, and suggesting further that if the individual desires his name on the list he should notify us himself. In this way nothing goes upon the list except by personal request. The only exception to this is where, in a few rare cases, a person perfectly well known to us asks that some neighbor or tenant be placed on the list. No name is ever removed from the list except upon request or upon the return of the bulletins unclaimed. I might say, however,, in this connection that the station is proposing to revise its list by sending out return postal cards notifying the party of the necessity of ah occasional revision and saying that if he desires continuance of the publications he should mail back the return'card. It will be so arranged that he can do this without making a mark or even affixing a stamp. The bulletins are sent to the entire mailing list; in the case of extremely technical bulletins an abstract is sometimes substituted for the full edition. Circulars may be sent to the entire list, but more likely to a partial list, covering a region or class of people necessary to be reached.

PRESS SERVICE.

Aside from the distribution of printed matter prepared by the Experiment Station, Mr. Powell is operating a press service, which is developing along three definite lines: First—The preparation of; page matter which goes to the syndicates for making up into boiler plate. This service is free to the companies involved except that they pay the actual cost of preparation; in one case on bills presented; in another a nominal rate per page is charged. The purpose is to get the information at hand as widely scattered as possible, especially through the medium of the smaller papers of the State. Second—News notes and brief reports of matters connected with the College of Agriculture and Experiment Station sent free to the papers inside the State, for such use as they may desire to make of them. Third—A limited service in the preparation of special articles for special papers, such as dairy articles for the dairy press, etc. The purpose in this entire press service is to develop an agricultural literature that is not yet fully developed, and to more completely disseminate the results of the station work. The University spends a great deal of money in the conducting of investigations and in the publication of bulletins