The Office of the University Printer is most closely associated with graphic design, but there’s another aspect of our work for the University: we provide editorial services as well. Our most important editorial project is the Bulletin of Yale University, the annual series of seventeen publications detailing the policies and programs of Yale College, the Graduate School, the professional schools, the Institute of Sacred Music, and the MacMillan Center. Work on the series begins each January and continues through the summer, as new information is solicited, queries addressed, and inconsistencies resolved. Editors review spelling and grammar, of course, but a surprisingly significant amount of time is spent fact-checking. Are book titles and publication dates accurately cited in a faculty profile? Is an organization’s name correctly configured? Are the many lists in the Yale College viewbooks for prospective freshmen up-to-date? 

After two rounds of updating and editorial review in Word, we shift to InDesign. Here’s a stack of galleys from the Graduate School bulletin; the reusable flags alert the typesetter to pages with changes, and the proofreader to pages that need to be checked.

All but three of the Bulletins are digitally printed at Yale Printing & Publishing Services. Here’s a sampling of the 2013–2014 issues. And all are posted on the Bulletin of Yale website in pdf and html.

Our office also takes on other editorial work, almost always in connection with design projects that we are handling. Just this year, we have edited everything from the annual Veterans Day program, to an exhibition brochure published by the Lewis Walpole Library, to the Yale-NUS College Curriculum Report, to the book celebrating Richard Levin’s twenty-year presidency. And we try to cast an editorial eye on the text for every design project that comes into the office. Even the best design can’t untangle a tortuous sentence or make sense of conflicting information.