RE: Data on circulation of books

["Hamaker, Charles" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Joe Esposito wrote:

>My principal regret is that money and time (and time is the 
>bigger factor) are being expended by some against the 
>expectation that there will be an enormous boon for scholars 
>when, say, all the books published in 1919 are suddenly 
>available at the click of a mouse.  I would have preferred, 
>cheapskate that I am, for the proposition to be tested first.

Joe, we've got this in our DNA. Recall the huge microform sets we 
bought of long forgotten tomes, in the belief that this would 
make content available to scholars that was at the time only held 
in difficult to access repositories or a miniscule number of 
copies worldwide. We believe that access to information is good. 
That's not a theory, it's an article of faith.

Chuck Hamaker
Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
Atkins Library
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223