On Apr 10, 2011, at 12:35 PM, Nate Hill wrote:

> Karen and Peter, I completely agree with your feelings-
> But my point in throwing this idea out there was that despite all of
> the copyright issues, we don't really do a great job making a simple,
> intuitive, branded interface for the works that *are* available - the
> public domain stuff.  Instead we seem to be content with knowing that
> this content is out there, and letting vendors add it to their
> difficult-to-use interfaces.



I concur.

To a greater degree, I think libraries ought to be putting into practice the principles of our profession against public domain works. Collection. Preservation. Organization. Dissemination. Take EEBO (Early English Books Online), for example. Why couldn't the library community create something like that? Why do we need to let Proquest own the theses and dissertation market? Our profession is still not exploiting the technology and the available content. Our Acquisitions Departments are really the Purchasing Departments. We seemingly think we need to buy our content in order for it to be valuable.

-- 
Eric Lease Morgan
University of Notre Dame