Ken Jones
"Free" Research
Thu Apr 26 11:36:52 2001


Interesting problem. This board was established as a research tool, and it has become exactly that. There is an amazing amount of information posted here that is free and essentially unavailable anywhere else (at least, it's not collected for convenient use anywhere else). That is the value of this board to me. I post questions, and I post answers, usually getting more than I give.

In my case, as a professional librarian, it's hard for me to leave any question unanswered. But, I'm also a historian, and I value my research skill and the work it produces. In this case, it appears that it would have been better to admit the commercial aspects up front. Perhaps we need some sort of policy regarding commercial inquiries, or a quid pro quo arrangement of some sort.