Re: A question of licences and Alumni members

["John P. Abbott" <abbottjp@conrad.appstate.edu>]

Thinking about Ann's point --

"...that for various reasons, the connections between US universities and
their alumni are much more strong than in the UK or many other
countries...."

this connection in the US is very often facilitated by intensely marketing
varsity athletics, particular football and basketball, to alumni.

Does the average alumnus receive free tickets to these games by virtue of
being a former student? Rarely. In fact, these same people and others form
booster groups where they give often vast funding to athletic programs.  
Implicit in this discussion is how to control the expectations of the
alumni association and development folk's when they go mining for free
anything to provide alumni as a benefit for giving to the U.

When the alumni association is able to facilitate the the Friends of the
Library in raising $100million to build a new library (cf. stadium), buy
out the Univ. Librarian's contract when their ARL/IPEDS rankings go down
three years in a row, and when the athletic program sends free season
tickets to all alumni, then we should feel serious pressure to offer and
pay for free access to our licensed resources to all alumni. Otherwise
this access likely comes at an additional cost which indicates fewer
resources will be available to currently-enrolled students.  Few
reasonable alumni would urge that action.

-- 
John P. Abbott
  Coordinator, Collection Development		
  ASU Libraries                           
  Appalachian State University            
  Boone, NC  28608-2026                   

phone:  828-262-2821  
fax:    828-262-3001  
email:  abbottjp@appstate.edu