On July 1, 1875, the Treaty of the General Postal Union came into force for 22 signatory states. Its new secretariat, known as the International Bureau (IB), was set up in Bern, the Swiss capital, and seat of the organization’s founding. On the ground floor of Bundesgasse 14 on what was described as the city’s “high street”, work began on September 15, 1875. The building had a noble neighbour opposite – the Swiss parliament building. At that time, about 40,000 people were living in Bern and nearly 10 per cent were manual workers employed mostly in the textile industry.
Six staff members were appointed to run the IB. The first director, Eugène Borel, came from the Swiss Post, and had an annual salary of 16,000 francs. He was joined by the French-speaking Arsène Morel as first secretary, previously from the Belgian Post, and a second secretary, Hermann Galle, from Germany. Joining them were a translator and two administrators.
Birth of a journal
It is doubtful whether the secretariat was overjoyed at the prospect of producing a journal alongside all their other duties. According to the IB’s first management report, this “obligation” to provide a review in three languages was “difficult”. The first dilemma to resolve was whether to produce one trilingual review or three separate language versions of the same journal. The trilingual approach won and the decision taken to produce 16 pages monthly.
The first Union Postale, published on October 1, 1875, and focusing on the minutiae of setting up an IB, was a hit with its readers. The first run of 2,000 copies was exhausted quickly, leaving the IB to issue a second edition. The second month, 4,000 copies were printed but the director feared that even this run would not be enough to assuage the demand.
However, Borel’s overall feelings towards this new journal seemed to have been mixed. “ …aside from the editorial services, this publication requires a considerable amount of work from our staff and we thought it only fair to pay our translator his entire annual wage (for four months on the payroll),” he wrote.
The magazine today
Union Postale 135 years later is printed quarterly in seven separate language versions and remains a small operation, managed by the IB’s communication programme. Just as Posts have seen their sector rapidly evolve since 1875, so too has the magazine adapted to the ever-changing media landscape and information needs of its readers in form and content.
Source
Faryal Mirza, “Union Postale magazine then and now”. Union Postale (3)2010. Pag. 18-19.
Posted at 1:00pm and tagged with: UPU, literature, magazines, two column,.
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