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>          would there be any interest in an academic homepage service
          for map libraries? it would be cheaper for us to link our
          homepage to a service designed to meet our ptron's needs and
          pay subscription costs than try to maintain our own
          independently at this and hundreds of other utonomous sites.
 
 
          if a group like WAML would coordinate subscriptions at, say,
          $100/yr, and maintain a comprehensive, generic service,
          would you subscribe?
 
 
          would anyone be willing to supply the service with things to
          be featured on it?
 
           would you pay a one-time fee for the generic service to
          create a unique homepage for your specific collection,
          linked to the generic one?
 
          Realise, of course, that you could link to such a service
          for free, so it would be established, maintained and
          governed by map librarians as a general public service.
          alternately, there are stingy control capabilities regarding
          access, but the real benefit would be in transferring our
          collective overhead to a machine, where possible.
 
          governance would be pure Adam Smith: "those who pay the
          piper call the tune."
 
          structure and features would include a repository for
          electronic map journals, answers to Frequently Asked
          Questions, links to all known web resources--including
          commercial map dealers (who might be asked to sunsidize the
          service for actual referrals, an activity that's easily
          monitored), and anything else we might agree is useful.
 
 
 
          LC