Managing the Buyers’ Guide electronically eliminates a great deal of paper and manual labor for the editors—both pluses. In the old days, we mailed every single company a form letter asking them to update their listings and send it back to us. We then had to manually update the companies in a database and then export the information to be published in the magazine. Now, companies do this job and a web program—developed by our savvy web master—exports the information in seconds. The editors need only to check it and double check it for accuracy and make it somehow fit into the pages of Nonwovens Industry, which brings me to the disadvantages.

By giving literally hundreds of nonwovens executives access to their company information we are also in effect giving them complete control over their listings, eliminating any pre-screening information prior to export. Therefore, we spent a great deal of time changing information to better reflect our style. Still, this disadvantage was minor compared to the many advantages of doing things electronically and the Buyers’ Guide is just the latest of many editorial tasks that have benefitted from modern technology.

Speaking of modern technology, this June’s Techtextil show, held in Frankfurt, Germany, was ripe with innovation. Nonwovens Industry contributor and industry veteran Helena Engqvist attended the show and reports on a number of interesting new nonwovens concepts on page 24.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Nonwovens Industry. If you think your company was left out of the International Buyers’ Guide, please contact me at [email protected]. And, don’t forget to check out the online edition of our International Buyers’ Guide at http://nitesh_non.rodpub.com/bg/. It’s updated regularly to ensure up-to-date access to all the key players in nonwovens.

As always, we appreciate your comments.

Karen Bitz McIntyre
[email protected]