austraLasia #2608
Priests of Christ in the Church for the World
JERUSALEM: 12th March 2010 -- While mention has been made in ANS of the book bearing the above headline as its title, it would be a pity to let this slip by on our part for the EAO Region, given that two members of the region have played a direct role in its production and/or its contents, and that the centre it emanates from, namely the Salesian Theological Centre known as Ratisbonne, in Jerusalem, is one of the study centres that members of our region attend for their priestly studies.
The book, edited for the most part by Fr Gianni Caputa, but with Fr Robert Spataro by no means hiding in the wings, was launched last week at Ratisbonne, in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio to Israel and Cyprus and Apostolic Delegate to Jerusalem and Palestine, Archbishop Franco. He also wrote the foreword to the book. The opening chapter on priestly formation was written by the Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, Archbishop Fisichella.
That, and other contents aside of a biblical, historical, pastoral nature, it is the production process for the book that may be of special interest. It began more than a year ago when Frs Caputa and Spataro asked 'yours truly' about the possibility of contributing a chapter to their proposed book in honour of the Year for Priests, a chapter on formation in the digital era. It was a 'hot' topic because we had already come to know, after meeting with Archbishop Celli in Rome as a group of Salesian communicators, that the Pope intended to address the topic in his WCD message - which he subsequently did, of course.
It is also the 80th celebration of the 'Studium Theologicum Salesianum' which has had several homes in the Holy land, and only relatively recently settled at Ratisbonne in Jerusalem itself, not more than a stone's throw, if you were Goliath rather than David, from the Knesset. Together, we felt felt bold enough to go ahead with a different approach to production than might normally be considered - a team effort over an established period of time, with some vigorous networking amongst key participants on the one hand, and a demonstration in practice of how a professional production could result from completely free and perfectly simple, everyday software, followed up by a digital press to gain the final result, on the other.
No need to labour the point too much except to state that the book was prepared in Open Office Writer - nothing more; (it could have been done in MS Word, but the final chapter offers a basis for suggesting why especially students for the priesthood can get down to preparing a book of this kind, and a thousand other tasks if you want, without troubling their superiors for additional funds! The professional quality is possible with careful and not too difficult decisions about templates, font and then of course, proofreading and correction. Effectively it means putting into practise a virtue of exploiting what everyone already has in terms of software, without aiming at superabundance.
The result depends on more than technique and technical prowess (very little of the latter involved); instead it relies on also exploiting the capacity of people to work together - the essential teamwork and networking between the variety of authors (who include an archbishop, Jesuit and Salesian biblical scholars, a Missionary of Africa, a Salesian missionary in a prominent Asian country, and so forth) and several of the students to help out in a variety of ways, including the cover design. The work was eventually published with Lulu.com.
Only very recently an article appeared in the Herald and Weekly Times which 'dissected', for want of a better word, the world of digital publishing today, comparing it with traditional publishing. Nobody says that digital publishing is the answer to every need, but in this instance it was a sensible approach, including its witness value for at least one group of theological students who are the 'raw material' of the book's contents. We were not talking of multiple thousands of copies, so for a specialist production, this cut out the middle man costs, and a book that would properly cost around US$ 26, if we take the HWT article as a guide, eventually cost substantially less. Nobody loses (or should not do so); everybody wins!
The book launch included a Skype linkup with the Rome-based 'typesetter', and as technology will have it, the video link chose not to work at that moment. Probably a good lesson in itself, given the Apostle Paul's famous passage on the priestly mission in Rm 10: 11-15 which is all about 'hearing' and hardly about 'seeing' at all!
If you wanted a copy, you might write to 'Don John of Jeruslaem', dongiannici@gmail.com to see if he has a copy spare, still. Alternatively, now that it is published and the ordered numbers sold, should that be the case, we could look at putting it online, if the editor agrees. And of course, if anybody wants a copy of the last chapter - just ask for it and it's yours by return mail!
_________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2009 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there. Or be interactive with the EAO blog Cetera Tolle. Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at http://sdl.sdb.org
Priests of Christ in the Church for the World
JERUSALEM: 12th March 2010 -- While mention has been made in ANS of the book bearing the above headline as its title, it would be a pity to let this slip by on our part for the EAO Region, given that two members of the region have played a direct role in its production and/or its contents, and that the centre it emanates from, namely the Salesian Theological Centre known as Ratisbonne, in Jerusalem, is one of the study centres that members of our region attend for their priestly studies.
The book, edited for the most part by Fr Gianni Caputa, but with Fr Robert Spataro by no means hiding in the wings, was launched last week at Ratisbonne, in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio to Israel and Cyprus and Apostolic Delegate to Jerusalem and Palestine, Archbishop Franco. He also wrote the foreword to the book. The opening chapter on priestly formation was written by the Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, Archbishop Fisichella.
That, and other contents aside of a biblical, historical, pastoral nature, it is the production process for the book that may be of special interest. It began more than a year ago when Frs Caputa and Spataro asked 'yours truly' about the possibility of contributing a chapter to their proposed book in honour of the Year for Priests, a chapter on formation in the digital era. It was a 'hot' topic because we had already come to know, after meeting with Archbishop Celli in Rome as a group of Salesian communicators, that the Pope intended to address the topic in his WCD message - which he subsequently did, of course.
It is also the 80th celebration of the 'Studium Theologicum Salesianum' which has had several homes in the Holy land, and only relatively recently settled at Ratisbonne in Jerusalem itself, not more than a stone's throw, if you were Goliath rather than David, from the Knesset. Together, we felt felt bold enough to go ahead with a different approach to production than might normally be considered - a team effort over an established period of time, with some vigorous networking amongst key participants on the one hand, and a demonstration in practice of how a professional production could result from completely free and perfectly simple, everyday software, followed up by a digital press to gain the final result, on the other.
No need to labour the point too much except to state that the book was prepared in Open Office Writer - nothing more; (it could have been done in MS Word, but the final chapter offers a basis for suggesting why especially students for the priesthood can get down to preparing a book of this kind, and a thousand other tasks if you want, without troubling their superiors for additional funds! The professional quality is possible with careful and not too difficult decisions about templates, font and then of course, proofreading and correction. Effectively it means putting into practise a virtue of exploiting what everyone already has in terms of software, without aiming at superabundance.
The result depends on more than technique and technical prowess (very little of the latter involved); instead it relies on also exploiting the capacity of people to work together - the essential teamwork and networking between the variety of authors (who include an archbishop, Jesuit and Salesian biblical scholars, a Missionary of Africa, a Salesian missionary in a prominent Asian country, and so forth) and several of the students to help out in a variety of ways, including the cover design. The work was eventually published with Lulu.com.
Only very recently an article appeared in the Herald and Weekly Times which 'dissected', for want of a better word, the world of digital publishing today, comparing it with traditional publishing. Nobody says that digital publishing is the answer to every need, but in this instance it was a sensible approach, including its witness value for at least one group of theological students who are the 'raw material' of the book's contents. We were not talking of multiple thousands of copies, so for a specialist production, this cut out the middle man costs, and a book that would properly cost around US$ 26, if we take the HWT article as a guide, eventually cost substantially less. Nobody loses (or should not do so); everybody wins!
The book launch included a Skype linkup with the Rome-based 'typesetter', and as technology will have it, the video link chose not to work at that moment. Probably a good lesson in itself, given the Apostle Paul's famous passage on the priestly mission in Rm 10: 11-15 which is all about 'hearing' and hardly about 'seeing' at all!
If you wanted a copy, you might write to 'Don John of Jeruslaem', dongiannici@gmail.com to see if he has a copy spare, still. Alternatively, now that it is published and the ordered numbers sold, should that be the case, we could look at putting it online, if the editor agrees. And of course, if anybody wants a copy of the last chapter - just ask for it and it's yours by return mail!
_________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2009 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there. Or be interactive with the EAO blog Cetera Tolle. Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at http://sdl.sdb.org
