From the Editor: Packing Up History

By Bob Neubauer

I just returned from Düsseldorf, Germany, where drupa 2024 is set to start on May 28. For 11 days, the print industry’s largest international trade fair will dominate headlines.

Your humble editor along with other journalists at the pre-drupa media conference.

To stir up excitement about the event, drupa invited 70 print magazine journalists from all over the world to a three-day media conference, where 18 top exhibitors gave us a peek at what they plan to debut there.

It was great to be part of an international event like this and hang out with fellow magazine editors from places like Columbia, Australia, Korea, Mexico, Germany, and many other countries. It was reassuring to see how many graphic arts magazines are still being published around the world, even as the number of U.S. publications has waned.

Though my recap provides all the details, I can tell you that artificial intelligence was a recurring topic. Numerous vendors touted how their new equipment will utilize AI to remove steps, set up equipment, and ensure consistency.

pre-drupa 2024 Conference

The other big focus was sustainability and how the latest equipment is being designed to cut waste, use less ink, and reduce costs for users. We can expect these trends to be visible long beyond drupa and shape the equipment we see at PRINTING United Expo in September as well.

I returned home from Germany to face another big change: moving. My company is relocating to new offices in Philadelphia, where I will no longer have filing cabinets and book shelves to store years of in-plant memorabilia. So I had to clean out my office and get rid of old story notes, conference programs, journalism awards, and, most dishearteningly, every issue of In-plant Impressions/Graphics/Reproductions that I’ve edited since 1994.

My collection of IPI issues from 1994 to present.

Ever since my first day on the job, I’ve proudly added one issue to my collection each month for 30 years. It filled an entire long shelf near my desk. But since I won’t have my own office in our new building, and there won’t be storage for old issues, I had to think of another solution. (My attic is already full.)

Thankfully, the Cal Poly Graphic Communication Department agreed to accept and showcase the issues in the Raymond J. Prince Graphic Arts Collection. So, in April I bid farewell to 30 years of IPI history and shipped all 330+ issues to California.

While I didn’t spend long hours perusing my collection, I did occasionally look up old articles and then get sidetracked paging through the issues, remembering retired managers and smiling wistfully at stories about early DocuTech installations. Those issues represented a lot of hard work and devotion to this industry, in my constant effort to make in-plants look good and show off their accomplishments.

If you find yourself in San Luis Obispo, California, in the years ahead and want to take a look back through time at how the in-plant industry has changed, check out the collection, assembled with pride over three decades. I hope one day I’ll see them all again too.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 170 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.