Britannica subscriber access

[Janet Dombrowski]

I do not have time to monitor access to Britannica. I need some assurance that
my users will get satisfactory access when they need it, and that subscriber
access is NOT adversely affected by heavy use by non-subscribers.

Just got a call from one of my heavy users --- "is Britannica ever going to do
anything about the slow response time .... it just sits there."

I have heard rumors from the librarian's community that response time from the
free service is better.  Maybe you folks can make it on advertising dollars --
but I doubt that will last for long (research shows that NO ONE looks at ads
anymore).

Britannica used to be a good, reliable source.  It's a shame to see the demise
of an institution.

Janet Dombrowski, Senior Librarian
National Geographic Society
jdombrow at ngs.org






oshaw at us.britannica.com on 11/29/99 01:26:04 PM

Please respond to BOLHELP at eb.com

To:   Janet Dombrowski/HQ/NGS at NGSDOMAIN
cc:   mehlers at us.britannica.com, BOLHELP at eb.com
Subject:  RE: Britannica subscriber access




Dear Ms. Dombrowski;

Please advise if you are receiving satisfactory response times from
Britannica On-Line.

Thanks,
Britannica On-Line Support

-----Original Message-----
From: Janet Dombrowski [mailto:jdombrow at ngs.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 10:45 AM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Cc: Cchelliah at eb.com.au; inquiries at eb.com
Subject: Re: Britannica subscriber access




One of my IS guys warned me that traffic coming into Britannica's free
service
was likely sharing "pipeline" capacity with subscriber traffic, even if
different servers are used.  I wrote Britannica about this and did not get a
satisfactory response  as to whether subscribers could be given priority
access.
I also asked for separate subscriber access to browse Britannica's Internet
Guide and was told it "was fixed" -- NOT what I asked about.

It would seem that Britannica is biting the hands that feed them. Perhaps
they
can make more money from advertisers than from subscribers.

Janet Dombrowski, Senior Librarian
National Geographic Society
jdombrow at ngs.org

 "Drew, Bill" <drewwe at morrisville.EDU> Wrote:


I am really getting frustrated with Britannica Online.  I just did a search
on Cornell University on both the free version and on our paid version.  The
free version was faster and produced many more useful documents.  The paid
version is still searching to restrict my search to the phrase "Cornell
University".  It is taking over 5 minutes to load.