Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

["tompoe AT renonevada.net" <tompoe AT renonevada.net>]

Hi:  Just wondered how many of you are comfortable with the idea of 
pay-per-view for government documents?

"A recent comparison of the content between PubSCIENCE and Scirus and 
Infotrieve showed that 90% of the journal literature in the scope of 
PubSCIENCE was covered by these two products.  Taken as a whole, they 
provide coverage of information for DOE Web patrons."

"As a result of these findings, DOE is hereby proposing to discontinue 
PubSCIENCE.  Comments on this proposed action will be collected using 
the comment form available on this Web site for a 30-day comment period 
to end September 8, 2002.  Comments received will be considered in the 
final decision process for the future of PubSCIENCE."

In other words, the U.S. govt printing office will privatize their work 
for access to government documents.  This is a quantum leap in logic for 
those who wish to hide their heads in the sand, thank you.  For 
instance, removing PubScience, automatically shuts out the 1300 mandated 
designated depositories responsible for providing adequate dissemination 
and availablility of those documents.  Who are the 1300 designated 
depositories?  You guessed it, the libraries across our country.  They 
are now pay-per-view consumers/customers/taxpayers paying to have 
government documents printed and available to for-profit profiteers.

Thanks,
Tom Poe
Open Studios
Reno, NV

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