On Thursday, March 16, 2000 6:11 PM Robert Wasley rpwasley@ix.netcom.com
wrote:
> Saylor's goal is to
> > build the university into "a cyber Library of Congress."
>
> Sasha Chislenko writes:
> > I find it interesting that this great social initiative is
> > coming not from the democratically elected government of this
> > wealthy nation, but from a private individual...
>
> If I understand the slant of your remark it would be appropriate to
> respond by
> asking where the Library of Congress, as well all most of the libraries
> around the country come from?
If my memory's correct, the Library of Congress is in the Constitution -- I
don't have my copy handy right now (I know I could look it up on the web,
BUT I've got to get to work in a few minutes) -- or by an act of Congress
very early on.
As for the rest of the nation's libraries, aside from the private ones, many
were started by Andrew Carnegie earlier this century. He provided the seed
money for them.
I don't know what you guys are getting at as I did not keep copies of this
thread. Anyway, libraries on the whole tend to be useless these days --
unless you get a good one with up to date references material and technical
works. (The difference between having the latest issues of the journal you
need versus some popular publication like _Scientific American_ or, worse,
_Discover_.) My local one -- and perhaps the local one in every place I've
lived -- had inadequate collections for most of the research I do. I've had
to purchase or borrow materials from other sources over the years. If I did
not do this, my understanding of certain topics -- mathematics, biology,
computer science -- would be decades behind actual research.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:05:30 MDT