Responding to msg by [log in to unmask] (Eric Siegel) on
 
>The Witt Library Posting is particularly  interesting ...
>[because] they are not announcing a gopher or Web site,
>but ... are  *selling* this information!!!
 
The idea of the Witt Library selling its data is not very much
different than that employed by other Getty projects.  You have
to buy the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) or the Union
List of Artists' Names (ULAN) if you want to own the resource.
 
If you want to use it for free, you always can go to a library.
 The AAT is available online (through RLIN at RLG), and there
you must pay to use it.  Recent discussions on the ARLIS list
about obtaining access to online versions of RILA
(International Repertory of the History of Art) and BHA
(Bibliography of the History of Art) have pointed to the
profit-making context through which these resources are made
available.
 
The issue here touches on the conflict between a widespread
assumption that scholarly resources should be made available
without charge, and the real-world requirements that 1) these
resources must prove their worthiness by virtue of their
commercial demand and 2) that their availability can only be
guaranteed when their cost is underwritten by the users.
Although AHIP may well be able to fund the compilation of these
resources, I'm certain (though I can't speak for them) that
they have no desire to provide this data free of charge.  The
fact that people are willing to pay to receive this information
certifies its value and provides incentive for maintaining the
resource.  Further, allowing free access to this data online
will, doubtlessly, tend to destroy the demand for its other
manifestations.  But there are additional reasons why online
access should not predominate:
 
The test that research resources must still pass (the National
Initiative to pave the information wagon-trail,
notwithstanding) is that of publication.  A publication is
stable, verifiable, unchangeable, and historically fixed in
time.  Online resources still are mercurial, intangible,
kinetic, unreliable and unstable.  When you improve a printed
work you have a second edition; when you improve an online
database there is no longer any definitive distinction between
earlier and later versions.
 
I, as much as the next fellow, would like to spend a free
serendipitous Saturday meandering through RILA online; but, if
the truth be told, someone has to pay for it.  Even when we use
the local or academic library system, the costs must be borne
by someone, and that someone is going to be us--either directly
or indirectly.
 
I remember reading a letter to the editor of the NYTimes (I
think about a year ago) that lamented the inaccessibility of
information resources online.  The author maintained that what
the information infrastructure in this country needs is a
benefactor like Carnegie--who in fact made manifest, and fixed
in our minds our need for and our belief in our entitlement to
a free library system.  This modernage benefactor, no doubt,
would pave the information highway with nuggets of gold.  Well,
that is not going to happen.
 
We will certainly have free access to online data as long as
the form, content, and medium are still experimental, or until
the "critical mass" of universal availability has been
achieved.  When the authors and presenters of free online data
become convinced that they have a resource that has commercial
validity and vitality, I'll bet that these resources will be
turned into yet another income spigot.
 
As mentioned above, this income will validate the resource and
keep it operational.  Just like public radio and television,
that depend upon a mixture of user contribution and major
benefactor grants, our new online resources will have to be
maintained, at least in part, by our financial support.  Paying
for it will help guarantee that it won't be able to be cut out
or abandoned for financial reasons.
 
What worries me is the future of information resources that may
have been placed online and have outlived the demand that
fashion and fad bestowed upon them.  Still valuable to
scholars, expensive to maintain as an online entity, will they
fall prey to the degausser's axe?  Will arcane resources like
my beloved Baudrier's _Bibliographie Lyonnaise_ in 13 volumes
die an ignominious death or never see the light of an online
day when only ten or twenty people in the world need access to
it within a year?
 
Eric's complaint, is our complaint.  It is my complaint, too;
but it also serves to make us ponder about what we expect the
coming generation of online services to bring us and what we
should expect to have to pay for them.
______________________________________
Robert A. Baron, Museum Computer Consultant  P.O. Box 93,
Larchmont, NY 10538
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