Where else can you laserset and lay out a huge book for 73.5p a page, with artwork ready to send off to the printers within three days? It works out more expensive initially whilst you are learning how to use the machines - it is L1 each time you need assistance, and L25 an hour if you need someone to sit with you all the time or to do it for you. But since the manuals are on the whole fairly easy to follow, I think most people could soon learn enough to be getting on with. There is an interactive program they let people use free which takes about two hours and familiarises users with the Apple Mac machine; and after that the cheapest and most sensible route into desktop publishing would probably be to use the Getting Started tutorial to teach yourself Pagemaker 4 - this should take about 4 hours and cost about L40, with occasional assistance from the staff.
The Institute is using the place for its ISI Publishing (tel 081 208 2853), where we offer to typeset and print people's books within six weeks and at cut-price rates - 1000 copies of a 128 page laminated A5 paperback can cost under L2,000 this way (including layout, printing and delivery), if authors are prepared to type simple style codes into their word processed text, for rapid transfer to Pagemaker 4 (which will use Pagemaker's 'Read Tags' facility to add font styles when placing the text).
The Neal's Yard Desk Top Publishing Studio, the first floor, 14 Neal's Yard (through an alleyway off Monmouth St), London WC2 (tel 071 379 5113). Although there are 10 workstations there, it is as well to book in before going.