One must keep the cost of access to rare books in proportion. I spend about two months per year looking at manuscripts and early printed books at many libraries, including major research libaries (British Library, Yale Beinecke Library, Folger, etc.), Cathedral librares, etc. When I am there, many dozen other individuals are also using similar materials, so these are not hidden away where no one can see them. Indeed, I am constantly amazed at the high level of service at most of these libraries, generally for free. I am neither British nor American, so contribute nothing whasoever to the overhead costs in the form of taxes or whatever to most that I visit, yet I get equal service. True, access to the materials is usually limited to those with a documented reason for access, usually research and publication. BUT: these materials are often VERY fragile. At the end of a long day sometimes my desk top looks like a wedding has passed by, due to all the tiny bits of paper fragments sprinkled on the desk, i.e., bits of the books I have been viewing. Research libraries are horrendously expensive to operate: the books are very expensive (even the libraries purchase a significant portion at the same sales as everyone else), the books often need extensive restoration and repair (one 17th-C book I bought needed $600 of restoration - one book); staff costs are tremendous (all the books are fetched from the stacks [often great distances], there are archivists and librarians to assist, many with PhDs and equivalent, conservators [restorers], security, etc.), and usually the buildings are huge and expensive on some of the most valuable real estate in the world. [In addition, one camera setup for photographing manuscripts, etc., used in a course I took at UNB, cost $60,000 for the camera set-up alone, not counting the staff or the dozen or so computers, printers, and other equipment in the photo lab.]
I am constantly amazed that access to rare books is as cheap as it is [most often free, not counting travel costs]. Gordon J Callon School of Music Acadia University Wolfville Nova Scotia Canada B4P 2R6 http://ace.acadiau.ca/score/site-map.htm -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed 4/11/2007 1:43 PM To: steve gottlieb; lute net Subject: [LUTE] Re: Some thoughts on accessibility of original sources of music --- steve gottlieb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > even if a library is state-funded, it isn't > necessarily > completelystate-funded. and further, not all > state-funded services are > free. True, we pay for many state-run services. However, the question remains: what services are libraries actually providing if access to their holdings (especially in some sort of computerized format) is made difficult? Preservation? Merely keeping an item in a relative state of stasis seems rather pointless if use of the information contained therein is discouraged. In the case of written music it needs to be remembered that, as Alfonso pointed out, the book is in fact NOT the music - unless it is in a performer's hands. Consider this: how many of us would be driving cars if getting a limited one-month licence from the government cost $200 each time we needed it? Chris > > > On 4/10/07, Howard Posner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > On Tuesday, Apr 10, 2007, at 15:53 > America/Los_Angeles, Denys Stephens > > wrote: > > > > > I have a lot of sympathy with your view that > > > art belongs to everyone,and in that sense we > > > shouldn't have to pay for it. > > > > But Alfonso didn't say that. He said "these books > belong to humanity." > > > > > But if that's > > > totally true, shouldn't we all perform for > > > free and just give away our recordings to people > > > who like them? The major libraries of the > > > world surely cost a lot of money to run, > > > > I think Alfonso's point is that the libraries are > state-funded > > institutions, which means that they're paid twice, > in essence -- once > > from taxes, and again from user fees -- and the > user fees, while an > > insignificant source of funds for the institution, > are high enough to > > discourage the materials from actually being used. > > > > > and > > > if we pay them for copies of musical sources > > > they own, are we not helping to preserve them > > > for the benefit of future generations? - > > > > I suppose that's the idea. The question is > whether it works that way > > in practice. > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > > > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > -- > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Finding fabulous fares is fun. Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 --
