Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watcgl!ksbooth
From: ksbooth@watcgl.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: SIGGRAPH Course Notes (new title)
Message-ID: <1509@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: Fri, 24-Jul-87 14:16:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.1509
Posted: Fri Jul 24 14:16:09 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 15:48:10 EDT
References: <1222@byzantium.swatsun.UUCP> <942@pixar.UUCP> <1229@byzantium.swatsun.UUCP>
Reply-To: ksbooth@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Kelly Booth)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 65
Keywords: ray tracing

In article <1229@byzantium.swatsun.UUCP> rice@swatsun (Dan Rice) writes:
>
>	Is it possible for non-attendees to purchase SIGGRAPH notes (not
>proceedings)?
>

Not easily.  SIGGRAPH course notes are available at the conference to
anyone who wants to purchase them (subject of course to stock on
hand).  For a number of reasons (I hope obvious) the print run for
course notes is carefully estimated to cover the needs of the
conference attendees and the advance orders prior to the conference for
full sets of course notes.

Complicating factors in attempting to sell notes after the conference
are:  copyrights to the material (some of it is obtained expressly for
the course notes and is not supposed to be further distributed),
royalties (there are none paid because the course notes are only for
the conference), handling charges (the ACM Order Department charges
SIGGRAPH $5 per order plus shipping charges to the purchaser), and the
time factor (some, not all, of the course notes have a useful lifetime
of only a year or so because the next year's edition is bigger and
better).

Three Ways to Gain Access to Course Notes:

#1  If you are a member of a SIGGRAPH local group that is active, the
local group will receive a free full set of course notes at the
conference if the proper forms were submitted a few months ago.

#2  If you are at or have access to an educational institution where
computer graphics is taught, a full set of course notes is being sold
-> to the institution <- by SIGGRAPH if the institution is listed in
the SIGGRAPH Educational Directory and the proper forms were filled out
a few months ago.  The advance educational price is "at cost" (it's
cheaper than the on-site price for a full set).

#3  Failing the first two, you can of course ask someone who is going
to the conference to buy the course notes for you.  Shipping facilities
are available at the conference (at your expense) for partial or full
sets of course notes.

Full sets (only) may always be ordered in advance of the conference
using the registration forms.  Shipping is not included, so you will
need to make arrangements with someone to ship them to you from the
conference.  SIGGRAPH is not in a position to provide shipping because
of the incredible hassles created by people who bounce checks, give
wrong addresses, work for the US government and expect us to accept
purchase orders that aren't honored for months, send checks for the
wrong amount, order notes that they subsequently decide the don't want,
etc.

We do the best we can.  #1 was introduced for two years ago.  #2 is
being tried this year for the first time.  Next year there will
probably be yet another mechanism for distributing the course notes.
SIGGRAPH believes the notes are a valuable contribution to the computer
graphics community.  We try to make them as widely available as we can
without unduly stretching our resources.

If you have comments or suggestions regarding ways in which SIGGRAPH
might make the course notes available, please send me e-mail.  This is
probably not a good topic for general discussion in the new group.  If
something new happens for next year, I will post an announcement.

Kelly Booth
SIGGRAPH Chair