Community Darkroom’s book Sharper Image was just recently completed and distributed among its contributors in the past weeks. Community Darkroom is an organization through Genesee Center for the Arts and Education, in which inner city students (7th-9th) learn about black and white photography. Wilson Foundation Academy Photo Club hosts the program to allow students to explore the wonders of photography and be apart of a larger project. The students learn how to composite, shoot, and mate photos over sixteen weeks through field trips around the city.

PUB has been working with Community Darkroom for several years now, providing workshops on scanning, InDesign and Photoshop. They show the students how to layout their images and add text. Several PUB members work with the project each year and fulfill the demands of project manager and production manager. Along with offering workshops, PUB also oversees the printing of the book with the help of Xerox. Xerox donates all the press time for the body of the book to be printed. This was the first year the book was created as a case bound book, a large leap for the organization.

The book was given out to all the students and volunteers on April 4 at the award ceremony. Students also received a camera for their participation in the program. The students find the experience extremely awarding and having a positive impact in all aspects. The book reflects the student’s lives and tell a story about each individual one, an aspiring accomplishment. PUB annually contributes to this rewarding program, hoping to bring inspiration to the teenagers’ lives.

This past week the RIT Alumni David Clark and Lauren Malarkey talked to PUB members discussing the employment opportunities within the IRS. Opportunities within the government included planning and managing print runs, multi-media pieces, designing annual publications and working on the website. They worked for the IRS’ Media & Publications Division in the Internal Revenue Services. The division has over 300 employees and publishes over 10,000 products a year. They are located in Washington DC, with field offices in Atlanta, Dallas, and Bloomington. The job includes great benefits including annual raises, regular advancement and generous holiday and vacation leave. They are always looking for qualified and motivated applicants who are interested in academia, business, industry and other professional fields related to printing, publishing and graphic design. They recruited at the spring career fair and hope to return in the fall to recruit more students for full-time employment and co-ops. If you are looking for full-time employment or co-op positions contact David Clark at David.A.Clark@irs.gov or Lauren Malarkey at Lauren.E.Malarkey@irs.gov.

During PUB Access Week, Bill Towler, from Rochester’s fast-growing City
Newspaper, spoke about City and how the paper came to be. Towler discussed City’s history and how RIT played a pivotal role in the paper’s development. He explained that City works toward putting out the best possible Rochester newspaper that will focus on specific issues, while covering the local arts. Towler predicted that many papers will eventually grow to be free dailies or free Sunday issues.

In response to questions from PUB members, Towler answered that the City staff currently uses PageMaker to design the paper, but will move to using InDesign this spring. City Newspaper is located on Goodman Street near the Village Gate. To learn more about City or the possibility of an internship, contact Bill Towler at btowler@rochester-citynews.com.