The Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville, North Carolina, won the 2001 NAA/TechNews Best Practices Award in the Press & Materials category for the design of the new Colora press to bolster its commercial printing business, and for developing commercial-bidding and cost-tracking software in-house to help monitor business issues across multiple departments. Originally the items were sent as two entries to the annual competition, but the NAA combined the two and awarded top honours to Fayetteville. The Observer received the 2001 Press & Materials Award - for innovative applications of equipment and solutions in the pressroom and for the five-component Excel-based software - at the NAA Newspaper Operations Super Conference in Phoenix, AZ, on January 14, 2002. TechNews, NAA's magazine for newspaper operations, initiated the Best Practices Awards in 1996. The awards are bestowed by TechNews' board of contributing editors from NAA's technology group. NAA is a non-profit organisation representing the $59 billion newspaper industry and more than 2,000 newspapers in the US and Canada. Colora: Newspaper Press Designed for Book Printing The new Colora press is configured to print the Fayetteville Observer newspaper (daily, 65,447; Saturday, 72,176; Sunday, 75,882) and to accommodate non-heatset commercial printing needs such as producing full-colour, glued and trimmed TV books. "We just started in the TV book business a year ago, and we have six titles in-house, including some for competing newspapers. Our revenue is up 50 per cent and our profit is up 70 per cent, primarily because we have very efficient equipment," says John Jenkins, production director at the Fayetteville Observer. In addition, the newspaper has contracts with 28 of the 59 community colleges in North Carolina to print their course schedules. "Printing the course schedules is similar to printing the TV books," adds John Jenkins. The 70,000 cph press has a 1.117mm (44'') cylinder circumference and a 1372mm (54'') web width. The finishing equipment prints, glues, folds, trims and stacks books at up to 35,000 iph on webs from 317.5mm (12½'') to 889mm (35'') wide.