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Selectboard agrees to restore $2,500 budget line to republish Brookfield history book
Summary
Members of the Heritage Commission described a plan to reprint and digitally republish a local history book; the Selectboard agreed to restore $2,500 to the Heritage Commission budget line to pay for digitization and reprinting services.
The Brookfield Selectboard agreed to restore $2,500 to the Heritage Commission budget line for work to republish the town history book originally printed in 1999. Heritage Commission members said the book was copyrighted by the original author and that in 2018 the town completed steps to transfer or secure necessary copyrights and to register for republication.
Heritage Commission members outlined the problem: existing paper copies are exhausted and printing vendors have been unwilling to reproduce the book without a digital master and updated images. Jan Ledbetter and others reported that Amazon’s self-publishing/digital services could produce a downloadable and print-on-demand edition and would also handle photo enhancement and bleed correction for an estimated fee of $2,500 to prepare a digital master and enable reprinting. The commission said final per-copy printing costs are unknown until the vendor receives the original copy of the book for review.
Commission members said revenue from sales or downloads would go to the town; the commission expects the town would receive proceeds and deposit them in a designated account. The Selectboard asked for copies of the copyright-transfer paperwork and confirmation of the registration; a Heritage Commission member said she would provide copies that evening and that she already holds attorney-stamped registration documents. The board indicated support and agreed to add $2,500 back into budget line 4589.620 for the Heritage Commission to proceed with vendor work.
Selectboard members asked practical questions about where the registration documents are stored, how revenues would be handled, and whether Amazon’s pricing would cover printing costs. Heritage Commission members said the town would receive the sales revenue and that more precise unit costs would be available after the vendor reviews the original book copy.
The decision to restore the $2,500 to the Heritage Commission’s budget line appeared to be made by consensus during committee reports; there was not a recorded roll-call vote in the transcript. The board directed the commission to provide documentation of the copyright transfer and vendor estimates for the next budget review.
