5.0347 Rs: British Library (2/35)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 1 Oct 1991 20:35:11 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0347. Tuesday, 1 Oct 1991.

(1) Date: Mon, 30 Sep 91 12:08:50 BST (25 lines)
From: Christopher Currie <c.currie@clus1.ulcc.ac.uk>
Subject: re: 5.0341 (BL/JANET)

(2) Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1991 13:17 EST (10 lines)
From: "Paul J. Constantine" <CONSTANTINE@YALEMED.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 5.0341 Qs: BL/Janet

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 91 12:08:50 BST
From: Christopher Currie <c.currie@clus1.ulcc.ac.uk>
Subject: re: 5.0341 (BL/JANET)

To get access from the net you need a registered account, for which
your institution is charged. I believe there are time charges as well.

This even affects people with BL readers' tickets; I can go across the
road, queue up for 20 minutes to use a terminal gratis, and hold other
people up while I'm using it, but I can't save my time and others' by
consulting it from my office.

I doubt whether lobbying would change this; free access from JANET for
registered readers or bona-fide academics would be regarded as a
discriminatory privilege and loss of potential revenue, not as a way of
making life easier for staff and readers in the Reading Room. It's more
likely that they'd start charging readers for consulting the catalogues
within the library. Meanwhile UK and US university libraries provide
OPACS for which BL staff are not charged if they use them.

By all means write and complain; nothing is done about complaints at the
moment, but they are useful to the hard-pressed BL staff as a stick to
beat Government meanness.

Christopher

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------16----
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1991 13:17 EST
From: "Paul J. Constantine, Yale Univ. Library" <CONSTANTINE@YALEMED.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 5.0341 Qs: tree-diagrams; BL/Janet; Shakespeare;... (5/108)

BlaiseLine is not a free service. An account and password are required.
If you are interested, I can provide the appropriate address.

Paul J. Constantine
Yale University Library