Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!claris!apple!well!sac
From: sac@well.UUCP (Steve Cisler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Hundreds of books on an optical disk
Message-ID: <7556@well.UUCP>
Date: 4 Nov 88 14:01:07 GMT
References: <300.236DAA95@mailcom.FIDONET.ORG>
Reply-To: sac@well.UUCP (Steve Cisler)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 19


Bernard Aboba is quite right; the print publishers are quite reticent
about seeing their libraries moved to electronic format. The Library of
Congress has a number of projects including a new one called AMERICAN
MEMORY where they hope to make available some of their 85,000,000 items
to the American people through some optical medium. While they house the
stuff, they don't have the rights and permissions.  The Faxon Company
recently did a survey of periodical publishers, and most had little
or no interest in seeing their print pubs in any electronic format.
A few did, but most of those were unsure if it would be profitable.

UMI has an experiment at Northwestern Univ. in Evanston where the images
of periodical pages are on CD-ROM. Evidently the publishers would not
allow just the ascii to be put on. The only pointers are to articles
not to a fragment of text (keyword in context).  But at least you get
to see the ads too!
Steve Cisler
Apple Library
408 974 3258