The name, Copy Exchange, dates from the 70s and 80s, before the advent of E-mail, when it was popular in the workplace to pass around and exchange Xerox copies of pictures, jokes, and articles that were intended to be shared by many. Indeed a Xerox copy that became popular — copied many times over, with gradually degrading print quality — could often be spotted in offices across the country.

The Copy Exchange was started in the mid 80s, producing a newsletter that included copies of progressive articles and political cartoons that had been submitted by mail. A small crew would sort through the submitted material, cut and paste together the final newsletter, run it off on the Copy Exchange Xerox machine, address and mail.

The Copy Exchange is small, very nonprofit organization based in Iowa City, which relies on a few volunteers for disseminating peace and justice information. Our past projects include placing graphics and literature on Iowa City Public Library kiosks, and cosponsoring local public lectures on progressive issues. The Copy Exchange website was started some time in the late 90s with the goal of collecting and disseminating peace and justice material, along the lines on the original newsletter that was published a decade earlier.

The webmaster of copyexchange.org is Franklin Seiberling, a long-term resident of Iowa City. A University of Iowa graduate, Franklin worked actively for the George McGovern presidential campaign in the early 70s. He worked his way up to the position of Computer Programmer Analyst in the early 80s at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where he continued to work until retirement in 2002, after making somewhat of a name for himself in the workplace as the office poet and the writer useful subroutines and functions.


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