NOTE: UPPER CASE DOES NOT INDICATE EXCITEMENT, BUT PRESENTS
      AN AID TO DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE DEVELOPMENT AND 
      THE PRIESTLY WRITERS 

   
>     Allow me to introduce myself as a new list member.  My name is 
>     Caroline Howlett, and I am the Development Editor for Medieval Studies 
>     at Chadwyck-Healey Ltd.

      WE ARE GLAD YOU HAVE SPOKEN UP
           
>     Chadwyck-Healey has followed the discussion on the Patrologia Latina 
>     Database with both interest and a growing frustration at its lack of 
>     accuracy - but why bother to let facts get in the way of a little 
>     mud-slinging?
>     
>     Anselm Cramer is incorrect in saying that PLD started at a price of GBP 
>     34,000.  In fact it started at GBP 25,750 and five-and-a-half years 
>     later has increased to GBP 27,000.
     
I AM SORRY I HAVE DECEIVED THE PUBLIC. MY PROBLEM IS THAT I HAVE A CLEAR MEMORY
OF THE FIRST CIRCULAR WE RECEIVED AND THE PRICE QUOTED: BUT OF COURSE I DID NOT
KEEP THE CIRCULAR, FOR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT I REMEMBER (OR THINK I
REMEMBER ). IT CANNOT HAVE BEEN THE DOLLAR PRICE, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT
39000, OR THE VAT PRICE, WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT 30000, IF THERE WAS ONE. I
REMEMBER CROMWELL'S REMARK (I THINK TO AN ASSEMBLY OF CHURCHMEN), *I BESEECH YOU
IN THE BOWELS OF CHRIST, CONCEIVE IT POSSIBLE YOU ARE MISTAKEN* : IT SEEMS I AM.
I APOLOGISE.


Bella Millett says that the point of electronic texts is universal 
>     accessibility.  Well, fine, but the cost of developing such databases 
>     is enormous - several million pounds in the case of PLD - and it can 
>     only be recouped through sales.
CAN WE BE GIVEN A BREAK-DOWN OF THESE COSTS? IS MIGNE VERY HARD FOR MODERN
SCANNERS, AND REQUIRES MUCH CORRECTING? HOW MANY COPIES HAVE BEEN BOUGHT? IT
WOULD BE USEFUL TO KNOW WHO HAS THEM, OR WHERE THEY ARE.
   I APPRECIATE. THAT THERE MAY BE RELUCTANCE ON THE PART OF THE MARKETING
DEPARTMENT TO UNCOVER TOO MUCH

ABOUT TWENTY YEARS AGO THE ENGLISH BENEDICTINES PUBLISHED A MICROFICHE VERSION
OF ALLANSON'S HISTORY OF THE E-.B- (WITH THE FORMER OXFORD MICROFORM
PUBLICATIONS CO) AND IN THE PROCESS OF THAT COMPANY BEING EATEN UP BY ROBERT
MAXWELL THE LIST OF WHO HAD BOUGHT COPIES WAS LOST - QUOD EST INCONVENIENS,
SINCE IT WOULD BE INTERESTING NOW TO KNOW WHO HAS THEM. WE CLOISTERED HISTORIANS
STICK TOGETHER, YOU KNOW. 
      Mark William's comments are 
>     refreshingly realistic, though I'm not sure even 'hard-nosed' is the 
>     right term for our pricing policy - we simply looked at the costs of 
>     production and the number of potential sales and arrived at our price. 
>     Six years on from starting the project, it looks like we got them just 
>     about right and will in due course recover our investment.  Shares in 
>     PLD would have made no one rich, however.  We have always regarded it 
>     as a very high-risk project with a commercial return which most 
>     publishers would find laughable, but we wanted to do it.
>     
>     Rozanne Elder asks about regional or consortium access to PLD.  We 
>     have made national and state-wide agreements for PLD in a number of 
>     countries, which have made PLD far more widely available than it 
>     otherwise might have been.  It's not a question of bringing group 
>     pressure to bear on us, simply of talking to us.  We are very open to 
>     such approaches.  Bella Millett mentions CHEST in the UK and is 
>     correct when she says that we have had no approach from it or from the 
>     body which provides its funds, but we'd be happy to talk.
     
WAS ANY THOUGHT GIVEN TO THE POLICY INITIATED BY SIR ALLEN LANE IN THE
THIRTIES, THAT IF YOU MAKE BOOKS CHEAP ENOUGH LOTS OF PEOPLE MAY BUY THEM?
PENGUIN HAS NOW ALMOST BECOME A CATEGORY (WELL, IT WAS FOR A WHILE)
FOR EXAMPLE, THERE MUST BE A GOOD MANY LIBRARIES WHO COULD NOT THINK OF
SPENDING GBP27000 ON SOMETHING LATIN! AND MEDIEVAL! BUT WHO MIGHT SCARCELY
NOTICE THE TRIFLING SUM OF SAY GBP2700 AS A PURCHASE COST. AN ELECTRONIC
MAILSHOT MIGHT DISCOVER MORE THAN TEN TIMES THE FIRST NUMBER. (ON THE OTHER
HAND IT MIGHT NOT - TO THE UTTER CONFUSION OF THE PRESENT WRITER - BUT THEN WE
WOULD ALL BE CONSIDERABLY BETTER INFORMED ABOUT CHADWYCK'S PROBLEMS)
    THIS LIBRARY WOULD CERTAINLY FIND IT AWKWARD TO PAY WHAT AMOUNTS TO ABOUT
A THIRD OF IT BUDGET: ALSO WE HAVE THE BOOK... BUT THAT WOULD NOT *NECESSARILY*
BE TRUE OF EVERYONE ELSE. 

>     Martin Howley says informed opinion says that the CETEDOC search 
>     engine is superior.  It depends on which informed opinion you are 
>     listening to.  The combination of PLD's software and its SGML-coding 
>     make it searchable in most ways imaginable and the web version now 
>     gets over the difficulties of using five CD-ROMs.

YES, IT DOES: BUT THE NET HAS ITS DISADVANTAGES TOO. I AM PARTICULARLY STRUCK
WITH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE WEBB VERSION OF THE *COPAC* CATALOGUE AND THE
TELNET VERSION. HOORAY FOR DOS! (OR MAYBE UNIX)
>     
>     Julia Barrow's remarks about chimpanzees are gratuitous, offensive to 
>     those who worked on the conversion of the printed texts and plain 
>     inaccurate.  We were well past the 'prototype' stage two or even 
>     three years ago and the overall accuracy of the conversion was 
>     already extremely high.  We did have problems with a few passages but 
>     these have also been corrected.  This is not to claim that PLD is 
>     free of keying errors, and we have always been grateful to users who 
>     have pointed out errors which we have been able to correct and will 
>     continue to do so in the future.  Dr Barrow is welcome to take a look 
>     at the current edition.

I THINK WE SHOULD RECOLLECT THAT MIGNE HIMSELF WAS NOT ALL THAT ACCURATE - IF
NOT, WHY ALL THE NEW *SCHOLARLY*  TEXTS? AND I UNDERSTAND (HAS ANYONE WRITTEN A
LIFE YET?) THAT HIS INDUSTRIAL PRACTICES WOULD NOT NOW SATISFY EITHER
GOVERNMENT RULES OR UNION PRINCIPLES. (I DIMLY  - MEMORY AGAIN - RECALL SOMEONE
WROTE ABOOK ABOUT HIM, BUT WHEN, WHO, WHAT HAS ESCAPED )


>     
>     As for Frans van Liere's comments, I think PLD will come some way 
>     behind Oasis and the Spice Girls in the queue in the pirate pressing 
>     plants in Beijing.  
>     
>     We would, of course, take piracy (in China or anywhere else) very 
>     seriously, but we would take equally seriously more legitimate 
>     approaches and suggestions from scholars and librarians which would 
>     enable us to make PLD more widely accessible.  It's now available 
>     online on subscription at less than 10 per cent of its purchase price 
>     on CD-ROM.  How else would you be prepared to pay for access?  A 
>     month's loan?  On a per-search or per-session basis?  Through 
>     consortium agreements?  We'd be interested to hear from you.
>     
DIALOG IS DIRECTLY ACCESSIBLE USING STEAM COMPUTERS AND MODEMS (YOU CAN DO IT
WITH AN AMSTRAD XT AND 2400 MODEM) ALTHOUGH THE DATA COST (WHICH VARIES) CAN
CUMULATE QUITE QUICKLY. EXPERTS HERE SAY WE ARE ALL GOING TO BE FORCED TO USE
THE HIGHEST COMPUTERS, MODEMS, SOFTWARE ETC SOON, *BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE
DOES*: BUT A LOT OF OLDER MACHINES STILL WORK, AND A DIRECT ACCESS, PAY PER
RECORD DOWNLOADED (OR PER 1000 WORDS ETC) WOULD MAKE pld ACCESSIBLE TO
INFERIOR PERSONS SUCH AS MONKS WHO CAN AFFORD AN OCCASIONAL SEARCH BUT NOT
LARGE SUBCRIPTIONS. YES, WE HAVE THE BOOK HERE: BUT NO, THERE ISN'T TIME TO SCAN
IT BY EYE TO SEE WHERE (IF ANYWHERE) SAINT AUGUSTINE SAID *BIS ORAT QUI CANTAT*
(PS I ACTUALLY WANT TO KNOW THAT ONE)

MAY I REMIND THE INDIGNANT THAT THE USE OF UPPERCASE IS 
FOR DISTINCTION, NOT FROM APOPLEXY 

Now I will go back to my cell
a.c.




Anselm Cramer OSB
Librarian, Archivist
Ampleforth Abbey, York YO6 4EN
[log in to unmask]


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