User fees, unless they are very modest, may tend
to make research the exclusive province of those who
have grant money.  Admittedly, no one is going to
indulge a research interest in subatomic physics out
of his or her social security check, but there are
areas of inquiry that are, at least in principle,
open to the public.  There are also fields in which
academic research is normally conducted on a shoestring,
and that seems like a good thing.  If there is a trend
toward charging for access to collections and other
resources, it seems to me that it is a trend toward
academic exclusiveness that really serves no one's
interests.
 
Craig Sanders
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