A Better Way to Send a Message

Remember Reader Service Cards? We first had them in 1955, when PLASTICS TECHNOLOGY started. We put them in the back of the issue so readers could get more information from companies they read about in the magazine. Readers marked the card with a “Reader Service Number” corresponding to the item of interest, tore out the card, and dropped it in the mail. Those cards went to a firm we hired to let the companies know who requested more information. The whole process took more than a month.

Believe it or not, that crude system persisted past the Millennium, when the internet made the Reader Service Card as obsolete as the Pony Express. But now reader service numbers are back in a form that fits an age when information flows as fast as electrons.

Starting with this issue, you’ll see articles with the logo “PTDirect” followed by an alpha-numeric code. To contact the company mentioned in the article, go to our website, www.ptonline.com. Look for a window near the top of the home page with the PTDirect logo. Type in the PTDirect code, and you’ll get to a page containing information on the company in the article. You will find contact information, a list of products that company supplies, and links to past articles or other information on that company contained on our website. You will also find a direct link to the supplier’s own website and (in most cases) a link inviting you to “Request info via E-mail.” Many readers have already been using this handy link to ask technical questions and request assistance with problems. Try out this fast, easy new system, and please tell me how you like it.