Camille - I've received the survey e-mail, but haven't visited the site. In light of your e-mail, I intend to.
I agree that this is a hardship for standards users. One of the nicest things about having a soft copy of a standard is that they're text searchable. If there's a requirement and you can't quite remember where it's located in the standard, but don't have time to rifle through the standard in either paper or computer, there's no beating a text search in a soft copy. The trend is to move to on-line viewing of standards. Standards Australia has already gone to this system (though allows printing a hard copy) and in speaking with IHS, BSI is moving to this delivery method, too. Not pay-per-view yet, but perhaps that's not far away. I dislike this as well, but understand that copyright issues are of great concern, mostly because of lost revenues. Soft copies of any document are extraordinarily easy and cheap to redistribute. The rebellious temptation is to always order a paper copy, keeping the costs of the standards bodies high, by forcing them to maintain printing presses or to contract the printing out. Come a day in the not too distant future, I foresee hard copies of standards not being available, unless one prints them themselves. I remember having to pay a premium for soft copy subscriptions to standards, when that first became available. Regards, Peter L. Tarver, PE [email protected] > -----Original Message----- > From: Camille Good > Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 6:26 PM > > Our company received an e-mail asking our standards > personnel to take an online survey about a new UL > standards policy that they are contemplating. > > Simply put, I think the policy they presented in the > survey is a HORRIBLE idea. Standards could only be > accessed over the internet through a web browser, and > they could not be downloaded to the viewer's computer > nor could they be printed out. > > There were a bunch of bells and whistles, such as > interactive tables-of-contents and links to other > referenced standards (but only as long as you had paid > for access to those reference standards too!!!). > There were also some additional questions about how > much more would the service be worth if it also > included access to practical application guidelines > for those standards (no indication of whether you > could print out or save those, but I would assume you > could not . . . ). > > But, in my opinion, there is no way any amount of > bells-and-whistles could compensate for the fact that > my access to UL standards, which my company has paid > for, can be curtailed by any of a hundred things that > I would have no control over and no warning of. > Also, there are times when I will be in an > engineering lab or out on the manufacturing floor or > even visiting a customer when I need to have those > standards with me . . . . and the presence of a > functioning computer with high-speed internet access > is not guaranteed!!! > > Has anyone else gotten this survey? Does anyone here > think this is a GOOD idea? This is the first I have > heard of this new standards delivery method - has > anyone else heard of it? > > And - maybe a question that is just as important - are > there any other standards organizations that are > currently using or actively contemplating this method > of delivery??? > > -Camille Good > Portland, Oregon > This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
