At this point, the prices we re hearing from the Tribune are beyond our means. One of a library s many roles is providing services some people can t afford, Tessman said. Internet access, along with books and music recordings, falls into that realm. People who don t have the wherewithal really rely on us for access, she said. As it is now, libraries are in a precarious situation.
Temporary access is better than none at all.
Hopefully, though, a permanent arrangement in the future will bring better service. The Tribune s service platform for archives leaves a little to be desired. So far it has shut down for days at a time, locked out library patrons because of too many simultaneous users, and terminated the library s subscription when it hadn t yet expired. The index is also a problem. The Tribune stopped indexing its stories in September 1990, assuming readers could access them on-line.