Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB56A64BC@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 10:05:03 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu>
Subject: Librarians Skeptical About Company's Plan (CHE's Academe Today)
Tuesday, March 10, 1998
Librarians Skeptical About Company's Plan to Solicit Donations for
On-Line Archive
By LISA GUERNSEY
The publishing company Chadwyck-Healey made an unprecedented offer to
libraries last month: It promised to make one of its on-line data bases
free to anyone in the United States or Canada this year if libraries
pledged to give it a total of $400,000 by the end of April.
The deal (http://www.chadwyck.com/pledge.htm) has struck some library
directors as innovative, and several have offered to help. But other
librarians are scoffing at the idea of a for-profit company seeking
donations from a non-profit -- and perpetually cash-strapped --
constituency. They see the concept as an elaborate marketing strategy
designed primarily to enhance Chadwyck-Healey's financial position.
The data base at the center of the deal is ArchivesUSA, a searchable
index on the World-Wide Web of documents, manuscripts, and other
artifacts in 4,400 libraries and 100,000 special collections throughout
the United States. The index was built, in part, on the basis of
information provided by participating libraries.
That fact irks Susan Brynteson, director of libraries at the University
of Delaware. "Chadwyck-Healey is a profit-making organization," Ms.
Brynteson says. "It would be wonderful if -- with its profits -- it
would make this archive free to the libraries that gave them the
information in the archive in the first place." Because she anticipated
that the company would end up selling the information, Ms. Brynteson
says, she declined to provide Chadwyck-Healey with data about Delaware's
collection.
Hundreds of other libraries and archives, however, have been more than
willing to contribute to ArchivesUSA. And many librarians praise the
data base as a valuable, one-stop resource for scholars who are trying
to track down historical materials, from diaries to official documents
to out-of-print books.
Chadwyck-Healey now sells access to the data base by subscription:
Institutions pay $1,995 a year, and individuals $1,495. But Stephen
Rhind-Tutt, the company's president, has become intrigued recently with
pledge drives, the fund-raising method used by members stations of
National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. Perhaps we
could give away access to the data base, he reasons, and then ask its
users to donate what they think it is worth.
Technology offers Chadwyck-Healey an advantage that radio and television
stations lack, however. Because ArchivesUSA is on line, Chadwyck-Healey
can track who is using the data base. Before they may tap into the
index, libraries and individuals are asked to register by providing
their street addresses and other contact information. A year after
ArchivesUSA becomes free, according to Chadwyck-Healey's plan, the
company will solicit donations from those who have used the data base
without paying for it.
Such requests for money make some librarians squirm. But Mr. Rhind-Tutt
sees his approach as the solution to a problem that has been worrying
many scholars lately: Development of and access to on-line resources are
inhibited by market forces that do not necessarily reflect the values
and needs of scholarship. "What do you do when you create a resource
that doesn't attract advertisers?" Mr. Rhind-Tutt asks.
The new model, he says, would benefit both Chadwyck-Healey and
libraries. His company, he says, is looking for ways to cut marketing
costs, such as the expense of creating and mailing brochures to
potential subscribers. Libraries, for their part, are exploring ways to
cut their subscription costs, and many are joining consortia to gain
leverage to make better deals. In fact, beyond the promise to make the
Web-based archive free to anyone who registers, Chadwyck-Healey's
approach is really more of a bid to get existing consortia to sign up
than it is a fund-raising campaign. The company encourages libraries to
think of the pledges as heavily discounted subscription fees. According
to an example provided by Chadwyck-Healey, if a state library pledged
$10,000 -- and that library shared resources with 200 academic, public,
and school libraries around the state -- the cost to those institutions
would be "only $50 per library."
In Texas, a consortium of the state's libraries has pledged $10,000 to
Chadwyck-Healey for exactly that reason, says Sue Phillips, a librarian
at the University of Texas at Austin and a manager of TexShare, a
coalition of libraries in the state. "This is very economical," she
says. "Now we can make this service available to all citizens in the
State of Texas."
Among other institutions that have each pledged $10,000 are the state
libraries of Georgia, Indiana, and New York. With those pledges, plus
subscription fees and other donations, Chadwyck-Healey officials say the
company has raised about $125,000 and has $50,000 in pledges.
Still, there are skeptics. Gary D. Price, a librarian at George
Washington University who says he respects Chadwyck-Healey's products,
calls the ArchivesUSA plan "an interesting marketing campaign" but notes
that the company "is in the business to make money." And David E. Stern,
director of Yale University's science libraries, warns that archives
should not be controlled by commercial interests. If a commercial
archive became unprofitable, he says, the company might decide to stop
maintaining it.
"Such skepticism is entirely appropriate," says Mr. Rhind-Tutt. "But I
don't know of another for-profit company that is saying publicly what
amount of revenue they'd like to bring in.
"This is an experiment," he says. "But one that I think is generally
worthwhile."