Kofi Anan said, ‘Knowledge is Power and Information is Liberating’, though he had said this in the context of education, it is relevant to membership organisations who provide vital information which helps not only their own membership but also those interested in joining or even seeking to work with the industry or association. The real purpose of a directory is to provide information about the membership to all those who are interested. In recent times, there has been a drive to put this information on the website as the information needs to be kept up-to-date. This being the case, the usage may be restricted to those who have access to login details.

What to include and what not to:

The information in the directory must be accurate – quite difficult to do when information is constantly changed. It is therefore quite critical that there is a short lag time between information being provided and the final despatch to the customer.

The structure of the directory must flow so the required information is easily found, tabs and colours are often used to segregate information into sections. Associations often have different membership and interest groups and yet may have a need to use a common reference point. There may be other skills or attributes, within the membership, which may be pooled together for ease of use – e.g. Accountants in one area, or Chartered Accountants in one area or even those providing Tax Planning etc., It’s all about how the information has been set up and what the user would find useful for their use.

Information can be basic information, or highlighted by use of bold or even use of colour for those customers willing to pay a bit extra. Advertorials are also a source of additional income as well as helps with the presentation in UK.

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Process choices:

Printing for directories vary quite enormously based on what the users find attractive and the amount of information that needs to be conveyed. Data is best printed in single colour, whereas some ‘highlighted’ sections are printed in an additional colour. Where advertorials are used, a full colour version of the directory is expected.

Directories can be printed in varied sizes, the most popular of these tends to be A5 (148 x 210mm), A4 (210 x 297mm), 2/3 A4 (210 x 199mm) and DL (99 x 210mm). However, the final product may be based on amount of information, the tabs and its purpose and ease of usage as well as delivery options.

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Personalisation:

With digital print processing, it has now become a lot more economical to do personalisation, this means that certain elements of the directory covers can be personalised with names and roles on the cover. Now with digital foil blocking it is also possible to take the directories to a distinct experience.

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Frequency:

The frequency of printing directories depends largely on the information churn and the user’s demands. We have seen a great reduction in need to keep printed directories as a lot of the changing information can be accessed digitally. As a minimum, yearly directories are still very popular.

Like with a lot of the printed material, printed directories newsletters can add tremendous value for the organisation. It’s a critical part of an organisation’s interaction with its members and sharing this information amongst like-minded groups. One may even argue against the need of a printer version when an electronic version is easily accessible. That said, a printed directory can be a made available beyond the realms of membership especially by assistants and other administrators. It would seem that there is still a useful function that directories perform and that is not likely to change, at least in the very near future.

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