Publishing Brochures in ARS
Contact: Mina Chung at mina.chung@ars.usda.gov (301-504-1653)
These guidelines are for nontechnical/nonscientific publications. For technical/scientific publications, request a prospectus kit from Mina Chung. Strictly speaking, a brochure is a small booklet (bound like a book with staples in the spine) or pamphlet (folded instead of bound). But for the sake of convenience, these guidelines use "brochure" to refer to all one-time nontechnical publications. For newsletters and other periodicals, please request guidelines from Mina Chung. Most ARS brochures describe a research lab or location, a research program or project, a service, or a product. Audiences can be the general public, specific customer/stakeholder/ industry/commodity groups, policymakers, ARS employees, and so on. The originating lab/location/office pays the cost of printing. In ARS, to publish a brochure, you must obtain advance approval via a memo called a "justification for publishing" (template attached). Once you receive notification of approval to publish the brochure, you have three options: Option 1—Desktop-printed by the originating office. Restricted to 250 copies per edition. Request "Guidelines for Self-Published Lab and Location Brochures and Other Information Products" from Mina Chung. Advantages: Saves time, meets immediate needs, can be revised easily and often. Disadvantages: Origins are obvious, though many people have done a great job with these. Option 2—If the brochure will be commercially printed and will use one color of ink on one color of paper (usually black on white), you may arrange printing through your regional GPO (Government Printing Office). Information Staff will provide layout and content guidelines. After you've finalized the copy and layout internally, you must submit a dummy (the layout with all the copy and other elements in place) of the brochure to Information Staff for review before going to press. You may be required to make some changes. Advantages: May save some time; depends on the complexity of the brochure. Disadvantages: Nonprofessionals usually have problems designing and laying out brochures for commercial printing and will likely have difficulty with quality control of the printing process. (Note: This option is not available to Metro DC labs and offices, because the Department requires that any USDA publications printed in the DC Metro area be edited, cleared, designed, and produced through agency information staffs). Option 3—If the brochure will be commercially printed and will use more than one color of ink (required for color photographs, obviously) and for Metro DC labs and offices requiring commercial printing, Information Staff will provide you instructions for submitting a manuscript and photo selections for editing, clearance, design, and production. This option is also available for one-color brochures when the originating office would like Information Staff assistance. Advantages: You will have a professionally edited and designed brochure and knowledgable quality control of the printing. Disadvantages: May take longer than Option 2. Experience shows that under optimum circumstances, it takes around 6 months from the time we begin editing the manuscript until you have the printed brochure in your hands. This includes 2 months for printing (6 weeks for one-color printing) once it's left our hands. We try to get to brochure manuscripts as soon as they're submitted, but this isn't always possible. Really simple brochures can take a bit less time. More complex ones will certainly take more. Note: For field locations outside the DC Metro area, on a case-by-case basis, we will allow option 2 handling of option 3 brochures if the field location can demonstrate that it will be working with qualified professionals able to follow USDA design guidelines and experienced in technical requirements and quality assurance for commercial multicolor printing.
Sample Justification for Publishing Instructions: Don't exceed one page; print on official letterhead; delete these italicized lines and substitute appropriate information where indicated in brackets; if you're not in a research lab or in one of the areas, substitute comparable levels of hierarchy in the signature lines.
[date] SUBJECT: Justification for publishing "Title of Publication" TO: Sandy Miller Hays, Director, Information Staff THROUGH: Mina Chung, Head, Editorial Unit, Information Products & Services Branch FROM: [Author/Originator] This is to request your approval to print or otherwise publish the subject publication, which [describe publication's contents and purpose; be succinct]. The target audience for this publication is [describe audience]. This publication supports ARS Strategic Plan Goal(s) [specify goal(s)]. To meet the needs of this audience, we request that #,### copies be printed. [If the publication will be Web only, please say so and omit this line.]
APPROVED: _____________________________________________Date: _________________ Research Leader APPROVED: _____________________________________________Date: _________________ Area Director APPROVED: _____________________________________________Date: _________________ Sandy Miller Hays, Director, Information Staff