Questia: who is behind it?

[Drew, Bill]

A member of the Questia Librarian Advisory Committee wrote me with the
following observations:

"I doubt Questia's goal is to keep students out of the Library.  I do think
their goal IS to make money AND may be to offer a minimum-size of library
that can serve as a basic information set.  At the moment, they seem to be
working with the Advisory Committee to find ways to develop relationships
with libraries, whose value I believe they appreciate (at least to some
extent).

I've tried the Questia site with its 50,000 books this week and found it
seemed to me to be content thin and not intuitive to use.  It really will
take a lot to replicate a library online, and at the moment I'd say that
the for-free web sites offer Questia more than equal competition.  I doubt
Questia's value or competitive place will be evident for a while, maybe
a few years."

Bill Drew