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Gnomon Copy
By waco on Sat, 03/27/2010 - 1:24am
In the good old days:
students, instructors, businesspeople, politicans, and the bad 'ole common folk', found they could get a good - clear - reproduction, of their documents, essays, books, legal forms, butts, flyers political propagranda, music events, menues, and un-numerous other items by visiting establishments known as "Copy Shops"
These establishments offered copies of any single 8x11 sheets for anywhere from maybe 15 to 3 cents per copy (reprotuction/print). Some vigeous comppetion lowered the rate (cost) based on volume. This was very cost effective for those trying to enlist followers of im-proptu events like earth day, student protests, and anti vietnam-war events:
this was a notable precursor of the present day social networking mass gathering phenomen.
oft overlooked and ignored are the "enablement" these services provided to the exposure of the Pentagon Papers, and the Rent Control movements.
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Comments
The Gnomes at Gnomon Copy
Gnomon Copy, like other establishments in Harvard Square, allowed people who could read to have an interface with the street bums and other lost souls who couldn't.
Only an MIT person like John Sitek could come up with a 'gnomon' as the symbol for a company (started in the late '60s, I believe).
That place was always bustling! Twenty four hours a day, people waiting in line to get their photocopies or delivery people flipping up that counter to get to the back, where they would snatch up a pile of copies and buzz out the door to deliver them!
You just never knew who your customers might be at that place. F. Lee Bailey had copies delivered to him from Gnomon Copy (probably nothing significant or confidential, but at the time, he was a pretty high profile guy!).
Lots of paper! Back in Ohio, I remember visiting a farm where the farm kids "built" forts for themselves out of bales of hay -- little benches, walls, houses. Here at Gnomon Copy, the workers did the same thing -- creating cubicles with reams of paper! Lots and lots and lots of paper. You put on muscle without ever realizing it, hauling around all that paper -- one ream weighs 50 pounds.
One ream???
Ahem. As a former Gnome myself, and a Copy Cop for quite a few years after that, I have to correct you. One ream (500 8.5x11 sheets) of 20# text weighs 5 pounds. One CASE of paper (10 reams) weighs 50 pounds. I've hauled an awful lot of cases of paper over the years!
When I worked at Gnomon I once had a nightmare that all we had was 3-hole stock and none of the customers would take their jobs on that; I finally found a case of plain paper, only to discover that the paper in the wrapped reams was already printed on both sides.