Dear Don, You are right and you are wrong. Sorry to sound like Vonnegut, but I, too, have my head in the sixties. Maybe you can blame Reagan. Or maybe he was only the messenger. But in my mind, the rush toward 'fee for services' was spurred by two of his policies: vastly increasing the cost of federal publications and services; and slashing public monies channelled to cultural institutions while at the same time making it less attractive for private individuals to donate to those same institutions. As a user of libraries and archives, I find fees offensive. As manager of a library/archive, I find them increasingly necessary. The very name says it all: not for profit corporation. First, it is a business. Even if it is a government agency, the ubiquitous ogre accountability is omnipresent. Oh, I don't have a problem with the concept. But the practice is often, as Dave Letterman might say, "A network timewaster." But I digress. A business must take in at least enough money to cover expenses or it ceases to exist. Any 'profit' by definition will be used to improve the organization by, say, putting on a new roof, or upgrading the HVAC system, or purchasing acid free containers for material storage. You talk about 'paid professionals' and I am one of those. We are as endangered as the materials we care for and provide access to. My position is half time. My predessessor was full time. Twenty years ago our archive had as many as four full time people working in it. We don't charge for using materials on site, but if you want to publish materials in which we may have a copyright intrest we want to have a say in how that material is used. If it is for profit, then why should we not share in those profits? And we don't want you scanning materials because we lose control of subsequent uses of materials that belong to our archive. This may seem petty, and in reality all we usually ask for is a credit line and a copy of the finished work (we have almost no money for acquisions and this is a way to build our collection), but as a department of a library that is part of a larger institution (a college) that has been told by the State to pay our own freight, the first mission of our archive is to support the goals of the college. It is only because 'Community support' is one of our strategic initiatives that we continue to exist. And you cite the poverty of students. Do students not pay tuition, buy scanners and laptops, travel to archives? Is it right for them to use the services of educated professionals and unique or rare materials without helping provide some funding so that the archives, too, can afford to purchase equipment and travel to obtain in-service education to stay current? Well, I've gone on for too long. And this is not a new conversation (Tom Perrin and I followed a thread a couple of years ago). And as I said before, I'm of two minds about this issue. I just wanted to give you, "The rest of the story." Wayne Miller ************************************************************************** Wayne L. Miller Special Collections Librarian Feinberg Library 2 Draper Avenue 518-564-5206 Plattsburgh, NY 12901 [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] "I wonder what will happen today!" -Maggie Muggins- "Not even God can change history...which is why he tolerates historians." -Voltaire **************************************************************************