Commercial Information, Publicly Funded.
By David Novak
There is a simple economic comfort in seeing our government save money by publishing electronically what was previously published on paper. Some Internet projects, however, have no such economic comfort; projects like making commercial databases free on the Internet at public expense. Surprisingly, such projects are some of the most successful Internet ventures on the planet.
The US Patent database was originally produced by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) then delivered to a collection of private commercial vendors who repackage and market this information to those willing to pay the rather considerable cost.
In a most remarkable turn of events, the USPTO decided to publish the database themselves (patents.uspto.gov). Yes, the USPTO would pick up all the costs of delivering the service, but perhaps a larger audience could offset these costs.
Medline is an important bibliographic database of medical literature. In June 1997, the US National Library of Medicine released Medline for free searching on the Internet (www.nlm.nih.gov). The inset table plots the traffic growing from 7 million searches a year in 1996-97, to an expected 250 million for this year ending September.
This is an outstanding jump of 245% a year!
The list of government databases made public in this manner now includes US Patents, Medline, Library of Congress Catalogue, ERIC, CRIS, and others. These were all commercial databases prior to their reincarnation as free Internet databases delivered at public expense.
Making these databases free serves to drop the total costs, re-invigorate interest and open access to a vastly larger audience who would previously never have used them. Medline is a fine example as a database previously intended for the medical profession but now, as a free database, becoming an important resource for anyone interested in researching their own health.
We are discussing some seriously valuable resources. Their success calls for some serious recognition, and begs us to ask - what else can we publicly fund to our collective benefit?
The Canadian and US trade statistics are available online through both the US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada. I can't find other countries that do this. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delivers EDGAR online. Canada delivers their related SEDAR database of corporate filings online. Again, other countries have not yet followed this lead.
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Several databases of current research have emerged including CRIS (US forestry research) and research by the US Department of Energy. The French dissertation database THESA came online earlier this year.
Do we want to release more databases in this manner?
Privacy concerns legitimately restrict many potential projects. We seriously need to consider if we want the prices of our neighbour's house online - even though we already get this information from local realtors. Making it public may do more to promote nosy neighbours than real estate reform.
Medline, on the other hand, serves to empower and enlighten us about our own health. EDGAR and SEDAR work to improve business transparency.
The rewards from publicly funded information are persuasive. Beyond the absolute numbers, we have access issues, over-all cost savings and a promotional bonanza of unparalleled worth.
A free service has limited need for additional promotion, marketing and a profit motive. It has no sales staff or costs associated with collecting fees. A free service is a stripped down hotrod with little more than a pit boss and a few mechanics.
There are high standards expected of information sold commercially. Internet databases have more flexibility. Not until April 1999 did the USPTO include an initial two million patent images in its Internet patent database.
As the Internet further pervades our lives, we will see more databases shift to free Internet access. There are persuasive reasons and many fine examples. In addition, as many databases are sold primarily to public libraries, we may see some entirely commercial databases become free (grant funded) Internet databases too.
First light on the Internet arose from a community willing to give for reasons of fame, love and gratitude to the online community. Despite widespread commercialisation of the web, I find it gratifying to see public information ventures carry this light further.
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David Novak manages The Spire Project, an Internet research resource and thinktank.
Traffic to PubMed/MEDLINE
Year million searches/year
1996 7
1997 21
1998 104
1999 191
2000 250
- Office of Communications and Public Liaison of the National Library of Medicine.
Searches refer to year ending Sept 30th.
PubMed released in June 1997.
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