As I understand it, AOL's hope for having the Smithsonian on line is to
be able to tap into the SI's popularity to attract new accounts.  At this
point, I don't know that that is happening as much as they had hoped.
The Smithsonian Legal Counsel spent nearly a year working out the details
of an association with AOL.  I'm sure that some form of compensation was
was worked out.  One "compensation" that I am aware of is the availability
of a fair number of accounts for SI people involved in creating various
SI features.  The AOL/SI venture is not limited to AOL.  Other avenues for
information dissemination are likely.  AOL is just SI's first stab at public
information networking.
 
_Richard Efthim, Naturalist Center
_National Museum of Natural History
_Washington, DC 20560
_(202)357-1503   fax:(202)786-2778   [log in to unmask]