Volume 8 Number 1
ISSN 1082-9873
To the Editor
The letter below was received in response to Sally Jo Cunningham's report on the ASIST Conference in the December 2001 issue of the magazine
To the Editor:
We greatly appreciate the review of the ASIST Annual Meeting in the
December 2001 edition of D-Lib. Sally Jo Cunningham did a great job of
giving a feel for the meeting.
I do want to correct the sentence about our arrangement with DigiScript to
digitally capture the meeting, "It was noted in one of the sessions that
the restriction of these documents to paying attendees illustrates the
difficulties of balancing the demands of commercial publishing and the
desire of many Internet collection builders to provide free, open access to
information..."
We are providing, at no additional cost, access to those who registered for
the entire conference, in either CD or e-access as they choose. But the
digital capture is available to anyone else, in either format, for $75
(ASIST members) or $100 (non-ASIST members). That is the only difference;
it’s not free, but it is open. Since this includes sight, sound,
overheads, an index and a transcript, we think that cost is
reasonable. The URL for more info and a demo of the service from last year
(John Seely Brown) is at <http://www.asis.org/digiscript.html>.
ASIST has partnered with DigiScript for the last two years because no one
can attend (or remember) every session. So two complete ASIST Annual
Meetings are or soon will be in the ASIST DigiScript library by
subscription or on CD. But the complete DigiScript Library (not just
ASIST) includes over 80 medical, scientific and engineering partners and
over 4000 hours. Their website is <http://library.digiscript.com/>.
We think this digital capturing is an excellent supplement to printed
proceedings for researchers. There is room for improvement — questioners
don’t always use microphones and speakers don’t always repeat
questions. But this service is a very useful enhancement, both for those
at the meeting and those unable to attend.
Sincerely,
Dick Hill
Executive Director, ASIST
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Copyright © 2002 Corporation for National Research Initiatives
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DOI: 10.1045/january2002-letters
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