About Raindex RAINDEX Well, what good are back issues of Rain if you can't remember where to find that tantalizing reference to demand water heaters or a particular E. F. Schumacher article from two years ago (or was it three)?? Not having an index has been frustrating for us Rainmakers too, because after a while all the issues definitely blend together and we can't remember sometimes if we've reviewed something at all, much less if it was in March or May, 1977. But what a project! It was begun about two years ago in the Spring of 1977 right after Rainbook was finished-it seemed like a logical extension of that project, and we already had that much of the index completed. Much of it was done that summer, working out of a series of makeshift cardboard boxes set up in our blue van while Tom and I were building the first round of our coast house. I'd work on the house part of the time, and when I got tired or the weather was bad I'd crawl in the back of Trucky and paw through piles of index cards. I was hoping to have an index of the first three volumes plus Rain book completed by the end of that summer. But alas, it didn't quite get done and the increased pressures of the magazine and a lot of traveling that fall left me no time to work on it. Frustration! Then Linda got excited about the project. As a new person at Rain it was even more difficult for her to find material in back issues than it was for those of us who had worked on them. She agreed to finish it-adding on Volume IV. Inevitably it took months longer than she planned (you can't work on an index full-time-you'd go batty) and then when our part was done it took our stalwart typesetter two months to painstakingly get through every card (one card per item-count them if you dare). (Computers, anyone?) But here it is at last-and we hope you find it useful. We sure do. It lists every article we've written (in bold face type), every book or pamphlet or film or project we've reviewed (in italics), plus names of authors, groups and contributors. If an item has been in Rainbook, it is listed first with a number. The remaining references are to volume: number: page of the magazine. In the centerfold is an issue-by-issue listing of the major articles, but not the entries (book reviews, calendar events or other tidbits). There is also a separate listing of the publishers represented-an amazing range of small and large. 2 There are a few subject headings (in capital letters) where whimsey and/or an existing listing ih Rainbook made it easy. But we gave up on our attempts at a complete subject index-too many possibilities for cross-categories (it's hard to know how your mind would work) and just not enough time or patience. If you're looking for greenhouse information, for instance, you can look under logical titles alphabetically and in the issue listings, and then resort to the tactic of leafing through the issues. You'll probably be glad you did anyway since that inevitably leads to something interesting you'd long since forgotten about-maybe on a totally different subject. There are also no listings in the alphabetical section for us Rainmakers, by name, though titles of our articles are there-look in the issue-byissue section for us by name if you can't remember the titles. We are planning now to produce a yearly supplement to the Raindex. It won't be such a huge task if we can keep up with it month-by-month. Look for the next installment, for Volume V, in Fall1979. Be sure to send us any feedback or suggestions you have so we can improve the monster. In the meantime, ENJOY!-LdeM Here's how it works: ~tl'ge---------... L.,Dear Haven Farm.e ~roopor pet'£0n Decker, Craig, 5, 111:1:6,7, 111:8:19, IV:5:12, IV:6:4 OOb\ec-1---- DISHWATER TEA, 111:7:19 P8in ~r+ide ---Down the Tube, by Tom Bender, IV:6:11 bcok·Htle Draft Horse Pri111ec, 8 rea.ds86 Vo(.~,no.1,~1~ Typeface is Syntax, composed by Irish Setter, Portland, Oregon. © 1979 RAIN: Journal of Appropriate Technology, 2270 N.W.Irving, Portland, Oregon 97210 10 issues/year
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