[Genealib] Ancestrybank clarification reply

[ancestrybank at ancestrybank.com]

Dear Sharon,

That would be wonderful if people took the time to digitize their  
collection and offer it for free.  They can absolutely do so and  
create a site/program and offer it to everyone.  I think we might be  
waiting a while for that to happen, but we can hope.  At the same  
time, let's ask the US National Archives and the British National  
Archives to make thier digitized images free as well.  It would also  
be nice if creating the website didn't cost a small fortune and  
marketing/hosting/time were nice and free.  Ancestry.com, Newsbank,  
Proquest and dozens of libraries that offer images should make what  
they offer free.  I guess these libraries are trying to make a fast  
buck off the collections donated to them...or are they just trying to  
raise revenue with what they have while providing information to the  
public to help them?  I have seen a website that asked people to scan  
their documents and put them on the site...a perfectly free site, the  
site has about ten documents and has been in existence several years.   
Ancestrybank offers a chance to earn from your documents in a way that  
has never been given before.  Seeing how many commercial services are  
out there for genealogy, I'm not sure I would consider a viable  
service that actually allows people to earn from what they have and  
the time they have put in as trying to make a fast buck.  The first  
criticism made was about restricting the use of "public domain"  
documents, which you have found out has absolutely nothing to do with  
the site...so instead of seeing it as a new service that a lot of hard  
work was put into in order to further the field of genealogy, a  
comment is made to try to find something else wrong.  I don't think  
people are coming to your library trying to find things wrong with it  
and I don't think that your library is costless to operate either.

P.S. Scanning and archiving documents is anything but fast!


Message: 2
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 19:14:08 -0400
From: Sharon Centanne <centans at tampabay.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [Genealib] Ancestrybank clarification
To: Librarians Serving Genealogists <genealib at mailman.acomp.usf.edu>,
         ancestrybank at ancestrybank.com
Message-ID: <453AA9C0.2A9DCFF8 at tampabay.rr.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Why not just share all our documents for free rather than letting someone
make a fast buck off of them???