Book People Archive

RE: Sustaining on-line book sites (re: Named Word and copyright)

John,

You ask excellent questions.

The bandwidth that the CCEL accesses use is something like
200-300 gigabytes per month. That costs real money; if Calvin
College were to stop supporting the project by providing the
bandwidth, I would certainly not be able to continue the project
without other support.  In fact, I already make decisions not
to provide certain things in order to keep bandwidth usage down.
The mp3 audio files of readings of books could easily get too
popular for their own good.

Every couple/few megabytes you download costs somebody a penny.

There is value to on-line digital libraries far beyond their
cost, it seems to me.  They should be supported in some way,
for the good of society.  In this political climate, I suppose
federal grants are unlikely. Some projects may have to look
into tip jars, fundraising, etc.  (Click here to donate $5.
Sorry, you can't get access to the books on this website for
the next three days, or until $xxxx in contributions come in.
Please buy a CD-ROM to support this project.)

There was a web site that mirrored CCEL content and added
advertising.  That site went away recently, and I suppose
that says something about potential ad revenue.

I know of a number of nice, free web services that have
disappeared or are in danger of disappearing because they
drain the webmaster's checkbook. Sometimes, I'd venture to
guess, the webmaster gets burned out, too.

I think the one thing that would go furthest to preventing
burn-out in my case would be for someone to handle all the
e-mail I get. I can spend 4 hours on email some days and not
get ahead. And that's deleting most messages without answering.
(So what am I doing writing this email...)

-Harry Plantinga
 www.ccel.org




> I'd also like to ask folks on the list, especially those who maintain
> sites of their own, about what can be done to help sustain free on-line
> book projects.  There's always been a cost involved in providing "free"
> books to people, and it's been paid for in many different ways.  Public
> libraries can use local taxpayer funds to supply free access to books
> to the community, for instance.  On-line, some sites are sponsored or
> hosted by nonprofit institutions (such as universities) who are interested
> in the content, or who provide space to members of their community.
> Others are put up through commercial providers, who ultimately
> hope to make money through ads or premium services.  Still others are paid
> for out of the provider's own pocketbook.  Some try to support themselves
> through side businesses (such as the sales of print copies of books),
> or through asking users for donations.  (Public broadcasters have
> gotten particularly skillful at that, though I don't expect that their
> technique of interrupting one's programming every few months with a pledge
> drive will translate well to the Web, even if people get a nifty
> tote bag for their donation.  But maybe I'm wrong about that.)
>
> All of these techniques have their pros and cons, and some of them
> are less stable than others.  (For instance, the rates for web site ads
> have plummeted in the last year, by as much as a factor of 10, so I'm
> therefore concerned about the long-term future of sites that were depending
> on them. Will nbci.com still be here by the end of the year, for instance?)
> Some sites have reported success with selling print copies, like Baen and
> National Academy Press, but I don't know how well this does in all cases--
> I know that Naked Word has been offering that as well, and I infer from
> Jim's note that it hasn't been enough to fund the site on its own.
> Most of the "independent" projects that I'm aware of, those that don't
> have full university or corporate sponsorship, require some level
> of sacrifice from the people that run them.  I very appreciate the
> work that these people do to give these books to the world, and I hope
> that you aren't burning yourselves out doing it.  I also hope that those
> who read and enjoy these books can help keep these books going and
> staying on-line.
>
> So, what are ways that we can make this happen?  What do folks
> running these projects need most, what have you tried doing to
> sustain your operations, and what's worked and what hasn't?  On
> the other side of things, how would readers like to be able to help
> out with these projects, and what could be done to make it easier to
> offer and use this help?
>
> Thanks,
>
>   John Mark Ockerbloom