Hi to all of you,  I thought you might like information from the
'horse's mouth' (or is it the other end?!) about MBSI Journals on CDs.
Here's the story, somewhat abridged, but basically complete:

In +/- early 1996 , and as President of the MBSI, I first proposed
to the Board of Trustees that we create a CD containing a searchable
database of all MBSI Journal (not Newsletter) articles.  I envisioned
this project as a fitting tribute to the MBSI's 50th Anniversary which
will take place in 1999.

I asked (with trustee approval) Marc Kaufman, an MBSI Trustee and
our resident computer guru, to look further into this matter, and he
and I spent sometime talking about specifications as well as costs.

Out of this and other discussions we began to realize that we could
probably put all the 'music box' journals, world-wide, onto one or two
CD's, including pictures (zoomable - you can see things that you cannot
see in the original photo without strong magnification), and totally
searchable (to find *every* mention ever of "reproducing piano" or
"Nicole".

Then, Marc in his usual, thorough fashion, proceeded not only to refine
the specifications but also found a firm that would scan one Journal
article into a form that would have the specifications listed above and
could be available on the Internet as a demonstration piece.  Marc
worked with the firm to do this gratis, and I contributed the article
which was used and gave them permission to use it in their advertising.

As Bea Robertson has said you, may see this article by going to

    www.MBSI.org/publica.html.

You will need the Acrobat Reader which you can easily download.

As this developed, Marc and I discussed it with both the German Society
(GSM) and the British one (MBSGB).  The problem was, and still is
(maybe), the cost.  At the time -- about 1 1/2 years ago -- the cost
was about $6./page and we expected to scan and make available more than
6000 pages.  The GSM agreed that this was a good project but did not
know if they had the finances to do it; the MBSGB officially told me
that they could not do it financially but would support it if someone
else could do the financing.

Marc and I, with the Trustees' consent, decided to table the project
and let a year or so go by.  As a number of you have said, costs are
going down rapidly and we should be able to do this financially fairly
soon, especially when we can get some private subscriptions.

There will be a lot of work to do to get material ready for this
process and to decide whether we edit or reproduce as is.  Mainly
though, it is a financial question; the technology is there!

Marc Kaufman, perhaps you might ask around to see what the cost is
today and perhaps Kevin Kline could appoint a committee with you as its
head, to completely specify what should and needs to be done.

With a real project, well defined stages and fairly definitive costs,
we could probably get enough private financing to carry it off!

What do you think?

Frank Metzger