[WEB4LIB] RE: Article - "Post-Tasini: Pity the Librarians"

[rich at richardwiggins.com]

I completely disagree.  Doing an exhaustive search of articles in The New York Times back several years is something I do as from time to time when launching new research projects.  The last 90 days is barely more than current news.  The description for the Times archive straight out of LexisNexis Academic Universe:

>From June 1, 1980 through current; the Final New York City Edition (full text);
>From January 1, 1969 - May 31, 1980 (abstracts);

Having gaping holes in the record means the quality of my research goes down.  For most projects, it is simply too inconvenient to schlep to the library and paw through microfilm -- and I work 100 yards from the Library.

The dissent in the Supreme Court case said that the predictable result of the majority ruling would be holes in databases.   The majority took note of this but said they were ruling on their interpretation of the law, not impact of the ruling.

The sad thing is that affected freelancers will see little or no money from this decision.  As others have noted, new freelancers won't see any money from this. I don't even think the National Writers Union will benefit all that much.   We just get online archives with holes during the "notch" years.  No one wins.

I wonder how many freelancers will notice that their Nexis searches are now poorer?  I wonder if any freelancers will miss being able to find their own works -- at least a citation -- on Nexis?

/rich


On Fri, 29 June 2001, "Drew, Bill" wrote:

> 
> I think the effect on libraries and users has been greatly exaggerated.  How
> many libraries actually have access to the New York Times beyond ten years
> ago?  It was ten years ago, from what I understand, that NYT started
> including electronic redistribution n their agreements.  Most of the NY
> Times we access is the last 90 days.  The rest we have on microfilm or in
> print.  I do think its stupid that the NY Times does not come to an
> agreement with its writers instead of deleting information..  The indexing
> will still be in the databases any way.
> 
> Bill Drew

_____________________________________________________

Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing, and Lecturing on Internet Topics
rich at richardwiggins.com  http://richardwiggins.com