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I felt that I was being ostracised for not owning a smartphone…
…for not embracing smartphones as being the Obvious Answer to Everything
Environmental. I seriously began to wonder if fandom was the friendly
place I had always thought it to be?
Furthermore, the ‘no paper’ zeal of some of the staff on the Information and Accessibility Desks was such as to overlook that some members had an absolute need for paper copies because for them the electronic option was not viable. Such people could have easily been offended - and what sort of Accessibility Desk has a policy that offends the very people they are there to help?
Whilst I strongly support the idea of a cleaner, less wasteful world, I am also aware that pollution and environmental damage come in many forms. Gaining a bad reputation these days is the impact of data centres on the environment and there are those in the UK who are becoming worried about the proposals to build numerous large data centres in the country, each gobbling up large amounts of power, and are very aware that power has an environmental price tag.
The International Energy Agency estimates that a typical Artificial Intelligence (AI)-focused data centre uses the same power as one hundred thousand homes. I do not have any figures pertaining to the convention which compare the environmental cost of providing printed matter for everyone (as in the ‘old’ days), keeping it as sequestered carbon, before recycling it when no longer wanted versus the provision of cloud storage and the downloading of data (often several times as files are refreshed or looked at again, having not been stored locally). I hope that the convention itself does have those figures and they can indeed justify their decision to avoid paper… I hope that they do …
…but when I tried to discuss such matters with those anti-paper warriors, who were insisting that my use of paper was somehow morally wrong, I found that to those with whom I spoke appeared completely unaware of the environmental issues of cloud storage and data downloads. Did those individuals simply not know the relative figures, which I realise is asking a lot of those folk, or had the convention not actually looked into them when making their policy decisions? Had the convention not made their staff aware of them before they pontificated on them?
So I have to ask - was the deliberate reduction in the usage of paper really an environmental saviour or was it merely an assumption of moral superiority?
Souvenir Book
At the previous Worldcons I have attended, the Registration Desk would issue each member with a convention pack (sometimes in an envelope, sometimes a tote bag) containing all their stuff for the event. At Glasgow they issued you with your badge and nothing else. ‘Where is the Souvenir Book?’ I enquired. ‘Oh, they’re on the table over there - you have to go over there and get your own’ came the reply, followed by ‘I usually forget to tell people’. And indeed, when passing by the Registration Desk on several occasions, I noticed that members were not being told of the Souvenir Book. Why was it not on the Registration Desk ready to be picked up, should you want one? It seemed that they really hoped that you would not notice them – they most certainly did not publicise them!
Those of us that knew about the Souvenir Books probably picked them up, once we had figured out that we had to do so for ourselves, but what of the many people who were at their first Worldcon? Not knowing they existed, would they think to ask? Almost certainly not! And that was not to their benefit and it certainly does not support the view, espoused by some of the convention staff, that they did not want them.
Over the period of the event, I was asked a number of times (I lost count of how many) from where I had got my Souvenir Book. I got very used to pointing out their location! That alone is a measure of how the convention was failing to distribute them.
Convention Guide
The next publication to pick up was the Convention Guide (their name for what is often called the Pocket Programme). In fact, it had been published on the website before the con - which is a Good Thing - and I had downloaded it and printed it home. Due to its font size, I had printed it on A4 (about the same as the Letter size used in the States) and carried it round in an A4 ring binder. At that size it was easy to read but rather bulky.
At the event I found the Convention had actually printed a number of the Convention Guides, which was a Good Thing, and they were available at the Accessibility Desk, as promised - though, early on, I had to make a determined point of explaining to the Desk that they were supposed to have them and that they were supposed to hand them out when asked. Unfortunately, being A5 sized, it did not quite fit in a pocket. More unfortunately, at that size the printed font size was very small and difficult to read; furthermore, the very small font therefore appeared more grey than black, adding to reading difficulties. For something available at the Accessibility Desk, it did not appear to be very ‘accessible’ for those with eyesight problems, an increasing issue in ageing populations.
As with the Souvenir Books, before long I had people asking from where I had got my Convention Guide and I soon lost count of the times I pointed people in the right direction. Indeed, I took to carrying a few spares so that I could hand them to those who asked. One reason given by those who envied my paper copy was that they found the online version awkward or difficult to use in comparison to the paper guide, with a number also complaining of poor network connections and long download times (one friend reported that her smartphone warned her that the file being downloaded was estimated to take two and a half hours!).
Later in the convention I was surprised by just how many printed copies of the Convention guide I saw in people’s hands. I heard a rumour, unsubstantiated I must stress, that the con had had to print extra copies, though it might simply have been that the Accessibility Desk was seen opening a new box of the Guides.
On the day we were told that a printable version of the
Programme Guide was not available: only after I got home did I discover
that had in fact been produced and was available online.
Programme Grid
I asked at the Accessibility Desk whether they had a copy of the programme grid, as I had been promised that one would be produced, but they did not. They explained that there was no such thing. Only after I got home did I discover that a programme grid had in fact been produced, probably just before the con started, and it was available online – so there was such a thing! he Information Desk also denied knowledge of knowledge of this online version.
Glasgow 2024's newsletter was The Unicorn.Convention Newspaper
The final publication to mention is The Unicorn, the convention newspaper. This was available online and it was also shown on screens around the SEC Centre. Paper copies were available, sometimes, at the Accessibility Desk but, once again, I was lectured on why I ought not to want paper copies.
As they had run out of one of copies, myself and a friend asked them to print us a copy each. ‘No’, came the reply, ‘if you really want it on paper go home and print it’. Think about that: the environmental cost of this if taken literally – a return taxi to the airport, two hours of flying, and over four hours of driving - just to NOT save a few pieces of paper being printed. Despite previous assurances that we only had to ask, the person on the Information Desk was so adamant that he would not print them that we ended up having something of a stand-up row, during which my friend pointed out that as a member of the convention staff (he was wearing a Staff tabard at the time!) he expected to be treated better by a fellow staff member. I then pointed out that there were several printers behind him, specifically for the use of the Accessibility and Information Desks, so it should not be a problem. ‘We don’t know how to use them’ was the reply. This was Day Four and therefore I was mightily surprised that they had gone so long without finding out how to use them, so I offered to pop next-door and get Tech to pop round and sort it out for them – at which point the guy very bad-temperedly tapped a few keys on a laptop and a printer sprang into life. I do not wish to call him a liar but, well, the word seems appropriate.
This is not the behaviour I expect from one fan to another! (SF² Concatenation has previously asked whether Worldcons are becoming unfannish?)
Final thoughts
I had been promised that printed information would be available from the Accessibility Desk without question or comment, in line with respecting people’s unspoken accessibility need. (‘Respecting people’ – whatever happened to the Convention's code of conduct?) The message had not reached the Desk. First they were often in denial that printed copies were available though, when pushed, they ‘found’ them. Then they challenged my need for a printed copy whilst lecturing me on the Terrible Scourge of printed paper. ‘Willing’ and ‘helpful’ were words I could not in honesty use to describe the staff. Admittedly, they became more willing as the con proceeded (perhaps they had been spoken to from on high?), but they should always have been willing and helpful from the start and should never have been awkward let alone so obstructive.
And one last point about printed materials. If the use of paper is so terribly, terribly bad, the very least they could have done was set the printers to print double-sided – the single-sided printing performed by the Desks was without excuse. ‘Convention, fix thyself’ to misquote the well known saying!
Peter Tyers
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