G'day All, I've been following this thread with some interest, as I sit in both camps, so to speak.
I have a personal membership to several groups - and even though I don't have the full benefit of my overseas memberships, to me the most valuable part is the magazines and newsletters. My other "hat" is that of RMLG Librarian. Our Guild is a "member" of other several Guilds, and receives the magazine only - no other membership benefits are extended. I know that some members of our group who are fortunate enough to have some spare $ are members of those same Guilds and get their own magazines/Guild benefits. The reason we joined those Guilds, is so that we can make available to not so fortunate members those same journals, and because we think they're journals are important and should be available to our members. One of the benefits of this for ALL of our members is that I index articles and patterns in the journals for our library database, so specific items can be found with some degree of ease. By having this db, and by preparing bibliographies from the db, I've been able to help our members (and the few non members who have contacted me) with reference requests from our resources. The Guild pays the full membership amount - and that is what we expect to do. I am the nominated person for each of the memberships, as being librarian, the magazines need to come to me first for cataloguing and indexing. I guess my point is: please don't be too quick to diminish the importance of a group subscribing to another group's magazine/newsletter/journal. There is an important place for this service. The beauty of this means that people can get access to information that may not be readily available through one's local public library. I would think that most groups like ours make sure that everyone has some sort of access to the materials. Yes, the group is paying for 1 membership, but remember, many groups may be small and have limited funds, and by paying for a membership on behalf of the group, they're NOT getting all of the benefits of membership - just the magazine. And the groups we are members of get the benefit of our $ and some wider exposure amongst lacemakers. The same argument can be applied to books and media too. :-) Cheers, Helen Bell, Aussie living in snowy and chilly Denver. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
