Robert McHenry: The (Editorial) Cost of Political Change: 1989 and Britannica
[Robert McHenry is a former editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica and author of How to Know.]
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, celebrated here last week as everywhere around the globe, was a highlight of the astonishing transformation that came over Eastern Europe in the years 1989-90. Many less dramatic but perhaps more substantial events preceded and helped make possible the fall, among them the remarkable changes that occurred in Hungary earlier in 1989. I offer here a small anecdote from that time.
In October 1989 the editor in chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Philip W. Goetz, was leading a group of editorial personnel in a visit to the Rand McNally printing plant in Versailles, Kentucky, where the encyclopedia was printed. The 1990 printing was in progress. The books were printed on huge web-offset presses, with gigantic rolls of paper feeding in at one end and neatly folded signatures of 16, 24, 32, or 48 pages filing out the other. The whole process involved printing some 33,000 pages about (I’m reaching into foggy memory territory here) 150,000 times each.
The work took months and was scheduled down to the hour. Every page that had been revised by the editorial staff had to be delivered to Rand in time for film to be cut and spliced and a new plate to be made and mounted on the press at the right moment. Delays anywhere in the process caused hair to be pulled, sharp words to be exchanged, and unbudgeted dollars to be spent. The most dreaded words in the press room were “down time.”
At one point during the plant tour, word came that there was a call from Chicago for Goetz. His caller informed him of a momentous political upheaval in Hungary that involved, among other things, a change in the formal name of the state, from People’s Republic of Hungary to simply Republic of Hungary. The question was, could the article on Hungary be updated to reflect the new developments?
A quick check with the printers showed that the signatures containing the relevant pages had already been printed and were being held until time to begin gathering signatures into volumes. There was a brief discussion among the editors present, and then Goetz made his decision: Scrap what had already been printed (150,000 copies of a 32-page signature) and hold until Chicago could create and ship revisions. It was a bold move, given the cost, but it was only a hint of what was to come.
Like everyone else, the editors at Britannica watched history unfold in that memorable year with fascination and celebration. But their interest went a little further, for every turn in Eastern Europe also meant unanticipated work.
Although it was, at that moment, merely speculative and, as it turned out, still a year away, it was the prospect of the reunification of Germany that posed the greatest editorial challenge. It was anybody’s guess how many times the labels “West Germany,” “East Germany,” “West Berlin,” and “East Berlin” occurred in the encyclopedia. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary to guess, for the entire text had been reconstructed as an electronic database during the 1980s, sitting on an IBM mainframe computer in Chicago. The computer wizards queried the database and gave the editors the daunting news: They would have to examine and in most cases revise some 1,300 pages in the Micropædia volumes and another 500 or so in the Macropædia. That very nearly equaled the usual quota of pages to be handled for an entire annual revision.
The previously scheduled annual revision work would have to go on; but in addition, a special project to prepare for reunification would have to be planned and set in motion so that they would be ready should it actually come to pass.
The bulk of the work consisted of looking at every instance of any of those soon-to-be-outdated labels and deciding whether it required change. Most did. Uses of them in a historical context would remain, though, which is why it was not possible to simply tell the computer to change every one.
As the work progressed, the editors of course kept a close watch on the news. A good deal more work was created for them by the other falling dominoes in Eastern Europe, but it did not approach in quantity the German problem. One reason for this you probably have not thought of: the very large number of illustrations — of everything from Greek antiquities to modern painting — bearing a credit line to one of the great museums in one of the Germanies.
Tension mounted as the year 1990 progressed and the new annual print dates approached. Would they release all those extra pages to the printer, or would they hold them back? When would the decision have to be made? The West German government, doubtless in the pay of World Book, held off until the first week of October before making reunification official. The pages were sent to Kentucky. Just a few days more would have been too late. Wouldn’t this tale make a terrific movie?
Read entire article at Britannica Blog
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, celebrated here last week as everywhere around the globe, was a highlight of the astonishing transformation that came over Eastern Europe in the years 1989-90. Many less dramatic but perhaps more substantial events preceded and helped make possible the fall, among them the remarkable changes that occurred in Hungary earlier in 1989. I offer here a small anecdote from that time.
In October 1989 the editor in chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Philip W. Goetz, was leading a group of editorial personnel in a visit to the Rand McNally printing plant in Versailles, Kentucky, where the encyclopedia was printed. The 1990 printing was in progress. The books were printed on huge web-offset presses, with gigantic rolls of paper feeding in at one end and neatly folded signatures of 16, 24, 32, or 48 pages filing out the other. The whole process involved printing some 33,000 pages about (I’m reaching into foggy memory territory here) 150,000 times each.
The work took months and was scheduled down to the hour. Every page that had been revised by the editorial staff had to be delivered to Rand in time for film to be cut and spliced and a new plate to be made and mounted on the press at the right moment. Delays anywhere in the process caused hair to be pulled, sharp words to be exchanged, and unbudgeted dollars to be spent. The most dreaded words in the press room were “down time.”
At one point during the plant tour, word came that there was a call from Chicago for Goetz. His caller informed him of a momentous political upheaval in Hungary that involved, among other things, a change in the formal name of the state, from People’s Republic of Hungary to simply Republic of Hungary. The question was, could the article on Hungary be updated to reflect the new developments?
A quick check with the printers showed that the signatures containing the relevant pages had already been printed and were being held until time to begin gathering signatures into volumes. There was a brief discussion among the editors present, and then Goetz made his decision: Scrap what had already been printed (150,000 copies of a 32-page signature) and hold until Chicago could create and ship revisions. It was a bold move, given the cost, but it was only a hint of what was to come.
Like everyone else, the editors at Britannica watched history unfold in that memorable year with fascination and celebration. But their interest went a little further, for every turn in Eastern Europe also meant unanticipated work.
Although it was, at that moment, merely speculative and, as it turned out, still a year away, it was the prospect of the reunification of Germany that posed the greatest editorial challenge. It was anybody’s guess how many times the labels “West Germany,” “East Germany,” “West Berlin,” and “East Berlin” occurred in the encyclopedia. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary to guess, for the entire text had been reconstructed as an electronic database during the 1980s, sitting on an IBM mainframe computer in Chicago. The computer wizards queried the database and gave the editors the daunting news: They would have to examine and in most cases revise some 1,300 pages in the Micropædia volumes and another 500 or so in the Macropædia. That very nearly equaled the usual quota of pages to be handled for an entire annual revision.
The previously scheduled annual revision work would have to go on; but in addition, a special project to prepare for reunification would have to be planned and set in motion so that they would be ready should it actually come to pass.
The bulk of the work consisted of looking at every instance of any of those soon-to-be-outdated labels and deciding whether it required change. Most did. Uses of them in a historical context would remain, though, which is why it was not possible to simply tell the computer to change every one.
As the work progressed, the editors of course kept a close watch on the news. A good deal more work was created for them by the other falling dominoes in Eastern Europe, but it did not approach in quantity the German problem. One reason for this you probably have not thought of: the very large number of illustrations — of everything from Greek antiquities to modern painting — bearing a credit line to one of the great museums in one of the Germanies.
Tension mounted as the year 1990 progressed and the new annual print dates approached. Would they release all those extra pages to the printer, or would they hold them back? When would the decision have to be made? The West German government, doubtless in the pay of World Book, held off until the first week of October before making reunification official. The pages were sent to Kentucky. Just a few days more would have been too late. Wouldn’t this tale make a terrific movie?