The Directory Project

16 Jan

The Poolapalli Directory project I took up a few weeks ago is a huge success. During my spare time, I could collect the family details and phone numbers of about 350 families. All these families have their ancestral links with local Cherukuri and Gottumukkala families. We printed a directory with this information and circulated it during Sankranti get together.

I compiled all my data using OpenOffice, the word processing tool. The printers we hired to print the directory use a desktop publishing tool. They took the data in RTF and imported it to the tool, making them redraw the family relationships and tabular settings. I went to the printers on 12th afternoon and they did an impressive job of getting the draft ready by midnight. They gave me a copy for review by 12.30am in the morning and I could get back to them by 6.00am with minor corrections and some formatting changes. We did the cover page design on 13th. They completed printing 500 books (32 pages each) by 2.00am the next day. I appreciate the printer calling me at 1.30am in the morning and declaring that he is done with printing and is packing the books. I collected these books on 14th, about 40 hours after I met them and told them what to do. That is a great service by this folks.

The printers’ name is Srinivasa Screens, located in the lane opposite Lions Club in Palakol. This is a mom-pop shop with the wife doing all the PC based data formatting/design and the husband doing all the block making and printing work. They are reachable at 92476 24171.

We realized that there are some corrections, especially in surnames and nativities of some of the 4th cousins. I am helping correcting this information and recompiling the 2009 edition of the directory. (Yes, I know. 2008 is in just now. But we still love to plan ahead of time for such things.)

We distributed about 300 copies on 14th and 15th. I gave away the rest of the copies to folks who further distribute to the non-local families.

Overall, the directory idea got a very positive response and some suggestions for improvement (mostly asking for more information on the origin, ancestries, popular people etc.). So I would treat the 2008 edition as a Beta release. We move towards a better quality one by 2009.

Thanks to all the folks who helped me compile this information and thanks to Srinivasa Screens for their phenomenal effort in delivering the hard copies.

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