I prefer, for example, to use the OED online 
rather than on the CD that I own, merely for the 
convenience  of not having to keep the CD in the 
drive. But I am privileged to have an established 
post in an institution very likely to continue to 
pay OUP for the privilege. The problem is not 
only one of sustainability in the technical 
sense, it's also one of ownership. Online publishers rent their publications.

As Josh Sosin points out, different conditions of 
access obtain in different parts of the world. I 
have just spent some time in Southeastern Europe, 
with scholars from all over the Slavic world. 
They prefer CDs and DVDs because their Internet 
connections, at least from home, tend to be 
insufficient for the frequent access to standard 
reference works that scholarship requires, and 
their libraries cannot afford the subscription 
fees. (Many libraries there also cannot afford 
books.) CDs and DVDs are easily copied. When the 
choice is between not having regular access to a 
work in any form and getting a copy on the black 
market, it's difficult to feel that the high 
moral ground is any closer to heaven.

Both media, whenever possible, I'd say.

Yours,
WM

At 16:18 28/09/2005, you wrote:
>I cannot speak to the state of thought in 
>research libraries, but I would say that many of 
>the scholars whom we serve operate under 
>constraints that are worth noting: field 
>excavations, under-privileged institutions with 
>poor, slow, expensive internet connections, 
>6-hour delays in airports with no wireless, etc. 
>When we asked papyrologists for input on our 
>plans to extend he DDBDP ("What would your ideal 
>DDBDP look like?"), a great many expressed a 
>wish to be able to access it via both web and 
>CD. We have been exploring the idea of serving 
>up the DDBDP both online (as we do) and in a 
>downloadable self-contained package that users 
>could burn to CD, mount on their computer, whatever.
>
>This isn't *really the subject of this thread, 
>but I think we should keep this other dimension 
>in mind, if only because we ought not in our 
>discussion of financial and institutional 
>exigencies to lose sight (and I am not 
>suggesting that we are here) of what we as scholars want.
>
>Josh Sosin
>
>>I was forwarded not long ago an email exchange 
>>between a director of a digital lexicography 
>>project and a librarian. The former enquired 
>>whether the library could purchase a lexicon on 
>>CD-ROM. The librarian’s answer was that the 
>>acquisitions department strongly disencouraged 
>>the purchase of CD-ROMs. Some of the arguments put forward included:
>>- public machines are too locked-down for loading new software
>>- there is a very high rate of theft in relations to CD-ROMs
>>- whenever there is an on-line alternative, the latter should be preferred
>>- major publishers are moving away from publishing on CD-ROM.
>>
>>While I do find some arguments persuasive and 
>>others not so, it truly begs the question: are 
>>CD-ROMs (and, I suppose, the same goes for 
>>DVD-ROMs) still a desirable medium for ditigal publication?
>>
>>I would appreciate your feedback on this.
>>
>>Best
>>
>>Juan
>>
>>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Dr Juan Garcés
>>Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
>>Kay House, 7  Arundel Street
>>London WC2R 3DX
>>T: +44 (0)20 7848 1393
>>F: +44 (0)20 7848 2980
>>
>-- -- --
>Harrington Fellow, Classics, UT Austin, AY 05/06
>Assistant Professor, Classical Studies, Duke University
>Assistant Editor, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
>Co-Director, Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri
>
>www.duke.edu/~jds15
>
></blockquote></x-html>


Dr Willard McCarty | Reader in Humanities 
Computing | Centre for Computing in the 
Humanities | King's College London | Kay House, 7 
Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44 
(0)20 7848-2784 fax: -2980 || 
[log in to unmask] www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/