Originally written by Sybil Shearin

What I did:

• Designed and created the layout of the A'08 Restaurant Guide
• Recovered text of the A'07 Restaurant Guide
• Edited the text to update outdated and incorrect information, and reorganized the Guide sections
• Obtained, sized, and placed images
• Re-created the map of Central Square restaurants, and created the back cover map of Cambridge
• Verified contact information and hours of operation for many Guide listings
• Researched Cambridge restaurants and created web resources above and beyond the Guide
• Submitted edits to the Restaurant and Dining Guide page(s) on the Arisia website

Time spent: ~24 hours, all pre-con

What went right:
Working with Crystal as Div. Head went amazingly smoothly. Whenever I asked for resources such as volunteers for proofreading or data entry, she was quick to provide them.

Special thanks go to Julia whose last name I never got (juldea@gmail.com), for doing data entry for a good chunk of the spreadsheets that went up on the web site.

What went wrong:
The editing process started out on the wrong foot due to the fact that the original A'07 guide was not readily available and the PDF had been constructed such that many areas of text had been saved as images before rendering the PDF, rendering it impossible to copy & paste the text from the PDF to another file.

Fact checking takes a long time -- should have allowed more time for that facet of the Guide preparation. Also, the information in the Guide is more volatile than it seems -- many last-minute edits needed to happen due to real-world changes (hotel name, taxi rates, restaurant closings) in the last month before the convention.

Need to communicate better with Reg./Info Desk folks to make sure the Guide is distributed as needed.

What to change for next year:
Don't know if I'll be doing the Restaurant Guide next year, but if I do, I'd like to start earlier and put more early emphasis on the online aspect of the Guide. Leaving that til the end made the web resources less useful.

Note: I have all the originals for the A'08 Restaurant Guide; please tell me where to send the bundle of files for archival and safekeeping.