| |
| |
Caption: Dedication - Grainger Engineering Library Symposium
This is a reduced-resolution page image for fast online browsing.
EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:
—y GRAINGER SYMPOSIUM QUEST!OHS & ANSWERS OCTOBER 13, 1994 QUESTION: If one looks at the classical role of bringing a book to life and getting it in the hands of a reader, it is really the publisher who acts as the eonduitfor that and decidesfirst of all whether a book should be published and whether to take it in one way or another to a market so that the reader can find it and purchase it. Is that publishingfunction analogous in the context that we have been talking about today to the information industries—AT& T and other companies that act really as conduits for information? And if that analogy makes a little sense, is it realistic to think that those conduit organizations in thefuture might also be somewhat the gatekeepers in the sense that publishers have made reputations, made money, or lost money depending on what they chose to be the conduits for? So in a sense, does it seem at all reasonable that the companies that now transmit information could have a good bit of control over the selection of that information at the source? ANSWER: (Mr. Allen): That's been a concern of a number of people, and it has been a concern of mine, frankly. As these mergers take place, that's an issue that has frequently been discussed. Ws believe that we are very, very focused on and strongly believe in openness. That is to say that the people who provide the conduits or who facilitate communication should be ambivalent about who owns the content, they should not be owners of the content. In fact, I believe that if we are owners of the content, we're going to lose a lot of business in our core business, which is the facilitation and movement of that content. So, I don't think it is a good business decision for us. PAGE 26
| |
