Kristina Tollefson
Costume Design & Technology Commissioner

The Costume Design & Technology Commission hopes members will join its online communities. There are three ways to stay in touch and involved with Commission members and Commission activities online.

The first line of contact is the Commission website, which is currently undergoing a redesign. An announcement will be made when the new format is available.

In addition to the sections on the website about Conference activities and Summer Symposia, there is information on the various projects supported by the Commission including the Program Survey and the Commercial Pattern Archive. Anyone with an idea for a Conference Session, a new Commission Project, or a Summer Symposium, can find all the needed information at their fingertips.

There is an active costuming community on the Costumer's Info list and the Costume Locator Service which bring together hundreds of costuming professionals world-wide. On the Costumer's Info list, sources, ideas, techniques, and products used in any area of theatrical costuming can be exchanged. Subscribers post questions ranging from machinery recommendations to dye techniques, textbooks, web sources, internships, and job openings. With a membership of over 500, there is someone out there who has faced the same challenges and who is excited to share those experiences. To join the Costumer's Info list, send a blank e-mail to costumeinfo-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

For those who rent costumes, the Costume Locator service is an invaluable resource. In this community, people who operate rental programs and those who are looking to rent costumes for productions are able to find each other quickly. The list is not responsible for setting up or monitoring transactions, but for getting people in touch with each another. To subscribe to the Costume Locator service, send a blank e-mail to costumelocator-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Both lists have a searchable archive so those who join now can benefit from the discussions of the past. Searching the archives before posting a request may be all that is needed to answer a question. Entering "dye vats" into the Costumer's Info archive, for example, will bring up all posts that contained any discussion of dye vats. Rental sources are stored in the Costume Locator archive. Entering the term "witch" will bring up multiple sources for Into the Woods or any other show where witches were discussed.

Both services are moderated, meaning the list moderator must approve each request or post. This insures the integrity of postings, allows the moderator to edit/combine duplicate messages as well as edit for clarity, and ensures members are posting to the correct list for their inquiry.

The main features of both lists can be accessed through e-mail alone, but both lists also have web pages to access additional resources. Both lists allow information to be received in the individual message format (which may result in as many as 20 e-mails a day on the info list) or the digest format (which compiles all of the day's messages into one e-mail). Members are automatically subscribed to the individual message format and can switch to digest by sending an e-mail to costumeinfo-digest@yahoogroups.com or costumelocator-digest@yahoogroups.com. Guidelines for use can be found in the "files" section on the Costumer's Info website and will be e-mailed immediately upon subscribing.

Anyone may belong to either list or both. Spend some time looking around the websites which have very detailed help sections. Any questions that cannot be answered by visiting the web and be addressed by the list moderators:

Costumer's Info List: Moderator Kristina Tollefson: kristina@tollefsondesigns.com; groups.yahoo.com/group/costumeinfo;

Costume Locator List: Moderator Kevin McCluskey, kmcclusk@mwc.edu; groups.yahoo.com/group/costumelocator;

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