Re: Gale Buys Questia

["Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

This is a most interesting acquisition for Gale, as it provides a 
springboard for their reaching further into the end-user 
marketplace.  Libraries, particularly academic libraries, can't 
reach the entire reader community with licensed resources.  Todd 
Williams, Questia's founder, realized this (so do today's 
founders of DeepDyve) and launched a service aimed at users who 
were not covered - perhaps an analog to the 'uninsured' in health 
care legislation?.  He was deeply committed to reaching those 
individuals.

Whether the service can be sold to libraries is irrelevant here; 
that hasn't been Questia's goal.  Back in the early days of 
Questia, some of us librarians had the opportunity to serve for a 
short time on their advisory board.  We asked whether the service 
could be licensed to libraries, and the answer was "no, those are 
not the terms of our arrangements with publishers."  Questia 
suggesed to us that libraries or colleges/universities could pay, 
if they wished, the end-user fees, and in fact for a while they 
marketed such a possibility. Some institutions chose to do this, 
but most did not, for various good reasons.

It would be interesting to know which libraries are still paying 
for Questia end users and how well that arrangement (and the 
content) has worked.  Anyone out there?

Ann Okerson/Yale University Library
ann.okerson@yale.edu