Project Description
The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Susquehanna Valley (UUCSV), located in Northumberland, PA, requests assistance for a publishing project. Sara Phinney Kelley, a member of the congregation and currently the church’s Director of Religious Growth and Learning (RGL), has written over 200 short information pieces about Unitarian and Universalist history, structure, and people. They have been presented orally at church services since September 2009.
The membership has long felt that they should be published for an obviously wider dissemination. In early 2012 Ms. Kelley submitted a proposal to Skinner House Books for a print version of what the church calls our UU Moments. The publisher believed that they would be better disseminated on our website, www.uucsv.org. We considered this, but ultimately decided we do not want to give away the work for free.
What we would like to do is create some sort of subscription service, or a downloadable version similar to the iTunes model, or both, so that users will have to pay a minimal amount. We also do not want to sell only PDFs, although that might be one option; one of the reasons the UU Moments might work well for other congregations is that they could be modified to fit a particular worship service or religious education class. So they might need to be minimally editable in a way so as not to substantially change the original writing.
Project Goals
We are requesting assistance from the CS Senior Design class to create this digital model of publishing, including creating:
- a template and process for uploading the UU Moments as they are created
- a way to make the UU Moments minimally or temporarily editable
- a platform for disseminating the UU Moments to others for use and/or download
- a payment system, whether for one-time use, repeated use, and/or subscription
- notification system for when new UU Moments are available
- any other component that the Senior Design team might see would be useful and/or necessary
Additionally, we would like the process to be something that UUCSV could use for other, similar projects. Our minister, the Rev. Ann Keeler Evans, has been creating daily musings for a wide circle, and she is interested in expanding those in a similar way; she also has several other pending projects that could fit into the same kind of model, if we can make it work well and easily.
Impact
TBD
Constraints
TBD
Resources
Example documents are available upon request.
Licensing
TBD
Point of Contact
Sara Kelley would be the UUCSV point person for the project, and would be available to work with the class and the team as needed. UUCSV would provide time with Rev. Evans if desired, as well as updated and fully cited copies of every UU Moment. We will work with the team to integrate into the UUCSV website, if necessary.
Contact:
Sara Phinney Kelley, RGL Director
UU Congregation of the Susquehanna Valley
Northumberland, PA 17857
http://www.uucsv.org/
Print 
PDF