3.864 MLA bibliography (94)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Mon, 18 Dec 89 21:23:29 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 864. Monday, 18 Dec 1989.
(1) Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 05:09:40 EST (21 lines)
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Re: 3.860 MLA Bibliography (23)
(2) Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 14:10:00 EST (37 lines)
From: MLAOD@CUVMB
Subject: MLA Bibliography
(3) Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 15:06:56 EST (11 lines)
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.860 MLA Bibliography (23)
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 05:09:40 EST
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Re: 3.860 MLA Bibliography (23)
MLA's price for its bibliography is apparently considerably higher than
Stampe suggests. (1) For a campus to put the data on a network for
availability to faculty and/or students, the annual license increases
substantially to several times the minimum $6500. (2) The data provided
is not meaningfully "an analytic reference work" as stated in the
posting. You license raw bibliogrphical information; there is no index;
and no search software or other tools for turning the data into a useful
reference work. (3) As part of the agreement, you agree to develop or
adapt search software and an appropriate interface entirely at your own
expense. (4) You agree to invent ways to capture useage data and
provide MLA with this information.
--- David Stampe <stampe@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> wrote:
... the price of the tape of the MLA bibliography [is] $6500
for the first so many terminals for a ONE YEAR LICENSE!...So why the high
price?
--- end of quoted material ---
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------44----
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 14:10:00 EST
From: MLAOD@CUVMB
Subject: MLA Bibliography
Modesty and a desire not to transgress the non-commercial mandate of
Bitnet has prevented me from making a general announcement concerning the
site licensing rate schedule for the MLA Bibliography, so I appreciate
Mr. Stampe's gracious entree to this topic.
Yes, our rates begin at $6,500 for an annual subscription, which
includes all MLA Bibliography records from 1981 to the present plus ten
additional tape updates during the course of the year. Rates increase
as the number of terminals increase, approaching a rate of $30 per
terminal as the number of terminals approaches infinity, with a special
category for all state-wide and consortia networks having an essentially
uncountable number of terminals. The site license rates set for the
Bibliography are approximately 50 percent of the rates charged by
another large database producer for a somewhat similar humanities index,
and are a still smaller percentage of the rates charged for other social
science and humanities databases by other producers. To put this rate in
context, the H. W. Wilson Company charges $4,695 for a complete CD-ROM
workstation, with an additional $1,495 required for a year's
subscription to the MLA Bibliography on CD, total cost (less shipping)
$6,190. If you have a library public access catalog, some extra
computer capacity, a staff member to load the tapes and configure an
interface that matches the one you currently provide, and an extra $310,
you can make the MLA Bibliography available at every terminal on campus.
The Modern Language Association is a non-profit organization, and as such
all programs and activities are designed to maximize services to members,
rather than profits. Should site licensing of the MLA Bibliography
provide revenues in excess of expenses, this will be used to provide
additional services and support to the community of scholars who belong
to the Association. The value of membership will be enhanced, though
dues might not go down. Production of the MLA Bibliography is not
underwritten by membership dues; it's the other way around.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 15:06:56 EST
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.860 MLA Bibliography (23)
$6500 for a one-year license for the tape of the MLA bibliography.....
Those of us who are going to MLA should be asking "our" staff
some hard questions.
Charles Faulhaber
UC Berkeley