From: IN%"educom@educom.unc.edu" 18-SEP-1996 05:39:23.00
************************************************************ Edupage, 17 September 1996. Edupage, a summary of news about information technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. ************************************************************
THE BOTTOM LINE ON ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES A former Public Library Association official estimates the cost of wiring the nation's libraries at somewhere between $2- and $3-billion -- "a sum nearly equivalent to that spent by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie during the great spurt of library building," notes journalist Nicholas von Hoffman. But, "being able to afford the hardware is one thing," says a senior VP of New York Public Library's Research Libraries. "Being able to replace it year after year and being able to afford the staff to help people use it is another. We could put workstations everywhere, but we don't have enough staff. The equipment is on a three-year, six-thousand-dollar replacement cycle. If people are using things like the World Wide Web, we need one staff member out on the floor for every 20 workstations in use... Right now we have 250 workstations for the public, so one staff member for every 20 workstations becomes a major investment." (Architectural Digest Oct 96 p130)
I would suspect that one of the following will take place: A. Libraries will not wind up getting Internet access subsidized to any great extent, since they can't afford to pay for the rest of it. B. Libraries will get Internet access subsidized, but won't be able to use it a lot so the subsidy may eventually go by the wayside due to lack of political support. C. Libraries will get everything subsidized. -Allen
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