Last year, Justin Hocking replaced Pablo de Ocampo as the director of the IPRC, moving here from Williamsburg to run the truly independent Publishing Resource Center. Earlier this week, we received a very nifty Fall Workshop Catalog in the mail, and it certainly indicates that Hocking has not been napping on the job. The catalog’s a handsome little affair, and since making booklets is essentially what the IPRC excels at, it makes me wonder why these hadn’t been arriving in my mailbox on a regular basis before now.

The IPRC has two new staff members in addition to Hocking: Nickey Robare, who is coordinating workshops, and Carye Bye, who will be handling events and publications. That means 75% of the staff there is less than a year old, and their enthusiastic new blood shows: They currently have over 40 workshops scheduled over the next few months! A lot of these are conventional zinester-type workshops about bookbinding, comics, photocopiers, and block printing, but there are a few surprising workshops being offered, too: Shut Up Your Inner Critic; Adobe InDesign; Pinhole Camera Portraits; and DIY Fundraising were all intriguing, fresh ideas.

What I’m getting at is this: If the IPRC has been off your radar for a while, or if you’ve grown so comfortable in Portland that you take it for granted, as so many of us do, now is a good time to get reacquainted with this incredible resource. Sometimes some new blood and fresh faces can do wonders for an organization.