Re: Questia

["Dr. James J. O'Donnell" <provost@georgetown.edu>]

An article in the Houston Business Journal of 2004
(http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2004/02/16/story3.html)
reports that they had bounced back at that point from 28 employees (their
low point) to 42, had turned cash flow positive in early 2004, and had
gained an additional $10M in financing (on top of an original $155M they
plowed into creating the database) and were a going concern.  Having bet
against them in 1999, I doubt I would do so again, though the hill in
front of them still seems fairly steep.  My academic judgment of their
content is that it's good enough to do an undergraduate paper from --
mostly -- about as good as a rather spotty college library, but not up to
national standards.  But for customers who pay for "good enough" it may
suffice.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown U.

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Sloan, Bernie wrote:

> Hadn't seen anything written on Questia for awhile. I thought some of you
> might be interested in the following:
>
> Bell, Steven J. Electronic Libraries Can't Be Academic. Chronicle of
> Higher Education, 52(6), Page B14. September 30, 2005.
>
> Available online (subscription required):
>
> http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i06/06b01401.htm
>
> Bernie Sloan
> Senior Information Systems Consultant
> Consortium of Academic & Research Libraries in Illinois
> E-mail: bernies@uillinois.edu