Charges for Scanning -Reply

[Thomas W. Perrin]

Dan Lester wrote:

> >>> Christy Wrenn <Cwrenn at beta.centenary.edu> 07/30/97
> 11:11am >>>
> 1.     Are any of your libraries scanning materials
> (photographs) to
> diskette for patrons: for use on HomePages etc.?
> --------------
> Heavens, no.  But then we're not a computer lab and don't
> provide word processing services either.  There are computer
> labs for that purpose.  If the patrons aren't university patrons
> who want to scan, then we send them to places like Kinkos
> and let private industry take over.  We try to NEVER compete
> with the private sector.
> ===========

Which, of course, leads me to ask, whether or not [public & academic]
libraries compete with bookstores?
The answer, of course, is that they do, and they do it very well.  I
know this, of course, as a bookseller and from having been asked a
thousand times or so, "Is this book in my library?"

Libraries exist because the public deserves access to information, even
if it can't afford it from commercial services.

When libraries offered an electric typewriter to its patrons, it was a
small step to offering the modern equivalent, the word processor.

Libraries now offer copying machines routinely.  IMHO, it's just a small
and logical step for libraries to offer scanning services.

I suggest that there is no traditional library service that can't and
shouldn't be mirrored electronically. Those that do will survive. Those
that don't will fade away as they become increasingly irrelevant.

Tom Perrin