Retiring Public Printer Pens Good-Bye Message in Graphic Arts Monthly Magazine.Bruce James
Bruce James was elected to the Passaic County (New Jersey) Board of Chosen Freeholders in November 2005. Addresses the Country's Printers in Special Guest Column WASHINGTON & OAK BROOK, Ill. -- The Honorable Bruce James, who retired Jan. 3 as the nation's Public Printer and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), has chosen the pages of printing trade magazine Graphic Arts Monthly Graphic Arts Monthly (ISSN-1047-9325) is a trade publication and web site owned by Reed Business Information serving the information needs of the printing industry, including printers and trade plants. (GAM) for his farewell address. "It is only fitting that my last message as Public Printer of the United States The title of Public Printer of the United States refers to the official head of the Government Printing Office (GPO). Pursuant to USC Title 44, Section 301, this officer must be nominated by the President of the United States and approved by the United States Senate. be to the readers of Graphic Arts Monthly, which I started reading 50 years ago when it was still in a digest format," James writes in the "60 Seconds" column of GAM's current (January) issue. The 53-year print industry veteran waxes philosophical about the state of the ink-on-paper medium, pointing out that one modern, Electronic Age definition of printing--from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, nonetheless!--reads: "To display on a surface (as a computer screen) for viewing." At the request of President George W. Bush, James came out of retirement in 2002 to become the 24th Public Printer of the United States and lead the GPO into the black. For four years he spearheaded "A Strategic Vision for the 21st Century" initiative, which outlines the GPO's vision for a digital information factory at no cost to taxpayers. "At GPO, we've come to the conclusion that we have no idea what the future of printing will be or how people will prefer to receive and use documents five years from now, let alone 50 years or 500 years from now," James tells the magazine's 70,000 readers, who are primarily owners and managers of commercial printing companies within the $160 billion U.S. print industry. He goes on to describe the federal government's Future Digital System (FDSys) that "will create a common denominator common denominator n. 1. Mathematics A quantity into which all the denominators of a set of fractions may be divided without a remainder. 2. A commonly shared theme or trait. of all past, present and future government documents," he explains, providing the American public with a one-stop site to authentic published information. "It will be able to deliver information to the World Wide Web, to plate-setters [for conventional offset printing presses], digital presses, CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). and DVD recorders, and whatever the future holds. All of this while ensuring users the authenticity of the information, managing versions and maintaining the integrity of the digital data in perpetuity Of endless duration; not subject to termination. The phrase in perpetuity is often used in the grant of an Easement to a utility company. in perpetuity adj. forever, as in one's right to keep the profits from the land in perpetuity. ." For the full article text, go to: http://www.gammag.com/BackIssues/artbgam0701.sixtyseconds About Graphic Arts Monthly Established in 1929, Graphic Arts Monthly explores applied technology for the printing industry. In addition to its print edition, the magazine's online counterpart, www.graphicartsmonthly.com, receives approximately 30,000 unique visitors A count of how many different people access a Web site. For example, if a user leaves and comes back to the site five times during the measurement period, that person is counted as one unique visitor, but would count as five "user sessions. and nearly 100,000 page views per month. GAM is published by Reed Business Information Reed Business Information is a large business publisher in the United States, United Kingdom, continental Europe, Australia and Asia. It is a division of Reed Elsevier. In 2005, Reed Business Information started the Quill Awards, a literary award broadcast on NBC. (www.reedbusiness.com), a leading business-to-business publisher in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and part of the Reed Elsevier Group plc. In addition to GAM, Reed Business Information covers the printing industry with its AF Lewis database-powered Graphic Arts BlueBook (www.gabb.com) and The Industry Measure subsidiary (www.theindustrymeasure.com), which compiles statistics based on in-depth surveys of U.S. printing managers. About GPO The U.S. Government Printing Office is the federal government's primary centralized resource for gathering, cataloging, producing, providing, authenticating and preserving published U.S. Government information in all its forms. GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for all three branches of the federal government. In addition to publication sales, GPO makes government information available at no cost to the public through GPO Access (www.gpoaccess.gov), and through partnerships with more than 1,250 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program. For more information, please visit www.gpo.gov. |
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