Internet Public Library: http://www.ipl.org/
Analysis: The Internet Public Library by Lorrie LeJeune in Journal of Electronic Publishing
Project started at University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies as part of a graduate seminar.
Started by Joseph Janes, Associate Professor and 35 students in his class.
IPL Site opened (about 70 days from project start to launch)
University provides server (Sparc 20) and an Internet connection
Good traffic and publicity.
Receives $150K Grant: "We are pleased now to be supported by grants from the School of Information via its grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and the gifts of the Friends of the Library"
Friends Sponsorship program
Individual -- $25-$100 to fund a review or a page.
Corporate -- Sponsor development of an area
Determines that School of Information will not continue to support it.
Develops business plan to pursue additional funding. Establishes position to do outreach.
IPL awarded $200K from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation -- Press Release. This grant will "Fund the development of several projects aimed at ensuring the long-term viability of the Library by giving it a steady and sustainable revenue stream."
The Internet Public Library Introduces "WebINK: Internet Newsletter for Kids".
Launches POTUS -- Presidents of the United States
Funds are beginning to run out. Staff members leave, anticipating that the project will be scaled back.
Supplemental funding supports 2 adminstrative staff with funding through April 1998.
IPL has served more than five million people in two years with a staff of six and a budget of less than $450,000.
The following are interesting quotes from Lejeune's article:
Joe Janes:
People think the public library is free, because they don't have to hand over any money whenever they use its services. But it didn't used to be that way; public libraries were actually subscription libraries. People paid a set fee for each service and that went on for several hundred years. In the late 1800s Andrew Carnegie stepped in, donated a lot of money for buildings, and got the government to support these new public libraries with tax revenues. And this system has been in place -- virtually unchanged -- since the 1920s. So now what happens is you have all these librarians saying that everything is free.
Lejeune:
The IPL made a tactical error in embracing the public-library model.
Schelle Simcox, hired to do business development left in July 1997:
"If you want to be an information provider you need to have someone on your team with the ability to bring in a steady source of income. That person should be a marketer who can sell your ideas to an audience that isn't quite ready for them; someone with the ability to pull people together, get them excited about ideas that are unproven, and convince them to offer financial support."
Joe Janes
The whole world of information is up for grabs. Gutenberg fixed things -- in a sense made them stand still -- for a very long time in the fairly slow-moving but nonetheless fluctuating world of print. We'd been living that way for 500 years when literally, almost overnight, the Internet arrived. And now we have a Website, a CD-ROM, virtual reality, a book -- sometimes all four or more rolled up into one product! And it moves, it throbs, it vibrates, it sings; it's altogether different, and yet it's still the same stuff underneath. I don't think that societally or culturally we've got the right handles, yet, to think about digital information. We're still in the translation phase, working toward our first real understanding of what the issues are. We're neither a generation nor a technology sophisticated enough to grasp what it really is we can do with what we've got.
People have the expectation that information and services should be free. Yet do we only get what advertising will support?
Will communities support online publications or services that serve them?
Is a subscription model viable?
Could you see how many people might support a project before starting it?