🚀 go-pugleaf

Date: Fri, 11 Dec 92 09:54:34 PST
From: Guy R Thomas <gthomas@unixg.ubc.ca>
Subject: Re: Free Access to some dbases should be allowed


In comp.internet.library it is  writen:

By: tdowling@lib.washington.edu (Thomas Dowling)

>Subject: Re: RE:Free Access to some dbases should be allowed
>Organization: University of Washington Libraries

>>         In addition, there are many government agencies that freely make
>> their data available to vendors like Dialog or Compuserve...


>Can anyone confirm this?  I was under the impression that Uncle Sam picked 
>up a few bucks by *selling* these databases to vendors.

Just the last week the Canadian Government hosted a conference with the goal
of placing the responsibility for the transmition, and disemination of 
government databases firmly in the private sector.  The rational was that,
paraphrasing keynote speaker, librarians were little more than
scrap dealers when it came to information technology.  So, yes,  this is the
trend in Canada at least.

> > I think in
>> the information industry there is a giant conspiracy to keep timely data
>> out of the hands of John Q. Public by making John's data acquisition
>> costs as expensive as possible...


>I'd be amazed to learn that the "information industry" is organized enough 
>to conspire anything.  If you mean the database providers, you're talking 
>about a few private companies, and then some real power brokers like the 
>National Library of Medicine, the American Psychological Association, or 
>the Institution of Electrical Engineers.  Hardly conspirators. 

In Canada the government is active in organizing them.

>>  ...This smells of Nazism...

>>         You can't tell me that the information industry and the
>> government want current data to be readily available to anyone...

>I won't tell you anything of the sort until you specify whom you mean 
>by the "information industry".

The Canadian government has a very clear idea of what it is.

Guy R. Thomas
gthomas@native-ed.bc.ca