Prince, along with Doug Nelson who heads the shop's bindery, explained in a January 26 interview that the shop is in the middle of one of the most intense stretches of printing Pathfinder titles in its history. "The Spanish edition of Capitalism's World Disorder was turned into the print shop today," Prince said. "The new Pathfinder title Che Guevara Talks to Young People in both English and Spanish was turned into the shop a few days ago. These new books will be off the press and ready to be shipped in a week. We are also working on several other titles at the same time.

"The digital state-of-the-art computer-to-plate equipment purchases we have made over the past year and half as a result of Capital Fund contributions, along with major improvements in the staff's mastery of this new technology, have been pivotal to the shop volunteers being able to make these quick turnarounds. Our quality has improved and our costs are lower," Prince said.

These advances, added Prince, enable the shop staff to respond to the stepped-up pace being set by the some 150 volunteers around the world who are preparing Pathfinder's entire list of nearly 350 books in electronic format and who are striving to reduce the number of the publishing house's titles that are out of print.

"As soon as the capital can be raised, we will make a down payment on a new stitcher," he said.

"A stitcher takes printed signatures and collates, staples, and trims them in line," Nelson explained. "We purchased a used stitcher in the mid-1980s. It does not meet our needs today. It takes too long to prepare the setup for every new job and it is designed specifically for long print runs."

"We have a three-month training period for new members of the shop staff," said Nelson. "We don't expect any of the new staff members to master this particular machine during their probationary period, which is a problem, since they can learn to operate all the other pieces of our bindery equipment in that amount of time. This will be possible with the new stitcher."

The shop will soon choose between the two different manufacturers they have been researching. "We want equipment that first and foremost makes it possible to print Pathfinder books and pamphlets and periodicals. Both pieces of equipment we are looking at fit our requirement for stitching in a cost-effective way the relatively small runs of pamphlets, bulletins, and periodicals produced in the shop," Nelson stated.

Modern stitchers are designed to minimize the use of hand tools and measurements, said Nelson. "They are operated with handset adjustments and the onboard computer walks the operator through the setup process. This helps in training new operators and to cut down setup time. With these advances in technology the skills needed for our stitching will be much less," Nelson emphasized.

Prince explained that the shop has made progress expanding its customer base as it goes through this transition. "We are going to use a substantial portion of the $200,000 Capital Fund to initially cover operating expenses over the next few months as we continue to widen our customer base. This money will be reallocated to Capital Fund needs as rapidly as possible," Prince added.

Many contributions to the fund come from individuals working in industry who receive bonuses from the bosses. Recently nine rail workers at Amtrak contributed more than $15,000 to the fund from the retroactive pay raises and signing bonuses they received after the union there ratified a new contract. Other contributions to the fund come from trust funds, inheritance, and accident settlements. For more information on how you can help, or send a contribution, contact the Capital Fund, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014-2570.  
 
 
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