Today, here in the US, the stock market reacted to a federal judge who
ruled that Microsoft is in violation of the Sherman antitrust act.
Only the naive would have not seen this coming.  Microsoft's dominance
is scary.

In a ripple effect, the stock market where most tech stocks are traded,
dived almost 8%.  The total loss for the last week is about 16%.  Bill
Gates lost eleven billion dollars in personal wealth.

The reason I bring this up is that perhap this is a harbinger of many
things to come.  Recent infatuation with all things technical has
skewed common sense.  True, there is a technical revolution at hand,
but the long term players have not been defined.  That is point of this
post.

While the MMD has provided a forum for the exchange of great quantities
of information and has established an archive for that information,
there is no guarantee that there is any permanence to this system.
Absent is the hard copy of the more traditional type of information
repository.

Given that, it seems to me that contributors should evaluate their
submissions.  Anything with long term historical significance should
really be given to organizations that will publish those articles in
printed format.

For example, recently, Mike Ames published his Duo-Art Organ Roll data
base here.  If he publishes that no where else, and for some reason the
MMD disappears leaving no trace, his data, in a public venue, is lost
forever.  On the other hand, had his data been published in the MBSI
Journal, hard copies would have been widely distributed and various
libraries would have copies available indefinitely.  Day to day chatter
of less importance should really be what is seen here, like recent
dicussion on V-belts for an Ampico.

The ease of using the internet and its tremendous capability to allow
us to exchange information may be both a curse and a blessing.  Avid
collectors and researchers have kept this hobby thriving here on the
MMD, but if someone pulls the plug, it is all lost.

Back up your data.  Publish the important stuff in hard copy!

Bob Taylor

 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ Mechanical Music Digest is five years old now, with 1050 subscribers.
 [ The MMD Archives has grown so big that it no longer can be stored
 [ on one CD-ROM (about 600 megabytes).  Well-established search engine
 [ sites, such as Alta Vista, visit the MMD web site regularly to keep
 [ their indices up-to-date.  Thus MMD Archives is an important on-line
 [ resource, available without restriction to anyone in the world.  It's
 [ at your fingertips and it's free!
 [
 [ With or without our authorization, several web sites on the Internet
 [ display copies of MMD articles, so it's not likely we will disappear
 [ without a trace.  MMD articles have also been reprinted with our
 [ permission a few times in the journals of the mechanical music
 [ societies; we just ask that permission to republish be obtained from
 [ the author and MMD, and that MMD be acknowledged.  No republication
 [ request has been denied.
 [
 [ If you feel that a society journal should preserve information which 
 [ was presented in MMD, please tell the respective society; presumably 
 [ the publications committee will decide which MMD articles meet their
 [ publishing philosophy.  MMD will surely cooperate -- just ask.
 [
 [ Robbie Rhodes, Editor MMD