3.871 MLA bibliography, cont. (102)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Tue, 19 Dec 89 21:48:12 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 871. Tuesday, 19 Dec 1989.
(1) Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 03:30:19 EST (21 lines)
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Re: 3.862 more on MLA; linguistic HyperCard; Online Notes (73)
(2) Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 04:09:12 EST (34 lines)
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Re: 3.864 MLA bibliography (94)
(3) Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 08:01:00 EST (18 lines)
From: EIEB360@UTXVM
Subject: 3.864 MLA bibliography (94)
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 03:30:19 EST
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Re: 3.862 more on MLA; linguistic HyperCard; Online Notes (73)
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) --------------------------------------------------------------45----
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 04:09:12 EST
From: David.A.Bantz@mac.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Re: 3.864 MLA bibliography (94)
Dartmouth has 4,000 undergraduate students; with faculty and staff
included there are approxiamtely 5,000 micro-computers on our network
with direct access to the library catalog and other network information
resources. At the price quoted for the MLA bibliography that comes to
$150,000 per year for raw bibliographic data.
Comparing this with the price of stand-alone workstations and including
the hardware costs of the workstations as the posting did hardly seems
germaine. In any case we could buy a ENTIRE LABORATORY OF WORKSTATIONS
including CD-ROM driver and the MLA database EVERY YEAR for the same
price. Over a seven year period, at current rates the camparison looks
like this:
MLA data only (no software or hardware): ONE MILLION DOLLARS for our
campus
Wilson Company: Workstation in every dormatory and classroom building on
campus (which could also be used for general purposes) plus search
software and interface: c. ONE MILLION DOLLARS
A more reasonable strategy given these non-ideal options is to purchase
a few stand-alone machines for the library. Even four machines would
probably guarantee access to users. Over seven years, the total cost is
$50,000 or just 5% of the cost of licensing the data alone from MLA.
--- MLAOD@CUVMB wrote:
MLA Bibliography records...$30 per terminal as the number of terminals
approaches infinity
--- end of quoted material ---
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 89 08:01:00 EST
From: EIEB360@UTXVM
Subject: 3.864 MLA bibliography (94)
How much does a University library pay for a one-year subscription to the
print version of the MLA Bibliography? (or do libraries not buy the
print version anymore?) I ask because the print version in the library
reference room is also consulted by many, many users throught he course
of the year, yet no extra charges accrue (or do they) for the number of
users. MLA doesn't charge UT Austin or UC Berkeley more for the printed
Bibliography than they charge, say, Dartmouth or Middlebury. And, by
the same token, the CD-ROM version is $1495 no matter how many users
consult it how many times. The only thing I can think of that might
justify that $6500 figure is that MLA is attempting to recoup the
initial investment required to convert the Bibliography since 1981,
which must have been considerable; but if that's true, then the price
ought to start coming down.
John Slatin
University of Texas at Austin