LookSmart and the Gale Group to offer free Web access to articles

[Sloan, Bernie]

In a recent and very interesting development, LookSmart and the Gale Group
have partnered to eventually offer free Web access to "business and premium
magazine and periodical content, from a variety of publications ranging from
Scientific American to Rolling Stone."  According to the press release "Gale
will provide LookSmart with access to current and archived articles from
hundreds of magazines and journals."

One very interesting paragraph from their joint press release reads:

"Under the terms of the agreement, Gale will provide LookSmart with access
to current and archived articles from hundreds of magazines and journals.
LookSmart will integrate the collection of articles into its directory and
make it available to LookSmart's distribution partners, including
Microsoft's MSN, Excite at Home, AltaVista, Time Warner, Sony, BT, Road Runner,
Prodigy, US West, NetZero, more than 370 Internet service providers and
thousands of Web sites."

In other words, it looks like some subset (i.e., "hundreds of titles") of
Gale/Infotrac full text data will be available free to the world. Evan
Thornley (LookSmart CEO) refers to the move as an attempt "to liberate
hundreds of thousands of proprietary articles and make them free for all Web
users." Looks like they plan to recoup the costs from ad revenues.

I'd love to hear what library folks think of this!  :-)

The full text of the press release is available at:

http://www.looksmart.com/aboutus/press/pr/pr00-05-23.html

Bernie Sloan
Senior Library Information Systems Consultant
University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting
338 Henry Administration Building
506 S. Wright Street
Urbana, IL  61801
Phone:  (217) 333-4895
Fax:      (217) 333-6355
E-mail:  bernies at uillinois.edu