[DIGLIBNS:526] Re: Free Information

[Sheryl Dwinell]

I think the important point here is that someone does have to pay for
access to high quality, reseach worthy material. When you consider the
number of manhours that go into compiling these resources, providing the
search interface, etc. etc. it's understandable that access to this
information wouldn't be given away for free on the Net.  I would guess that
few users really have a clue about which Web resources that we hotlink on
our site are ones we pay for and which are freely available on the Web.  As
much good free stuff as there is, a lot of the best stuff tends to be only
available by subscription.  As Virginia points out, there'll probably never
be a time when those high quality resources are generally available for
free on the Web.  I sometimes see the downside to this perception amongst
Net users of 'free on the Internet' because they tend to believe that
EVERYTHING is free on the Internet. I've met some highly educated folk who
wonder why we even have a library any longer since 'all the books are on
the Internet anyway' or who wonder why they can't download John Grisham's
latest novel for free off the Net or why they can't find an article in XYZ
esoteric chemistry journal by doing a search in Yahoo.

Sheryl Dwinell * Cataloger/DBM Librarian/Webmaster
Memorial Library * Marquette University
P.O. Box 3141 * Milwaukee, WI 53201-3141
414-288-3406 * dwinells at vms.csd.mu.edu