Dear Sam,  The technology to put all our publications on CD is
available now.  We have one article illustrated on the MBSI web page
to show what could be done.  See http://www.mbsi.org/publica.html

As mentioned on this page, it is a large article with lots of pictures,
so it takes a while to download.  But if you save the download to your
hard drive, you can then look at it, do searches, zoom in on photos
(that is really neat!) Just think of the research possibilities when
you don't have to look in Gary's index, then go find the appropriate
issue of the publication!  But just do a "find" for a word, a subject,
a photo...  The possibilities are endless.

The cost is still high, but if this technology follows the pattern of
other computer type technology the cost will come down.  And nearly
every new Win95 program you buy loads Adobe Acrobat Reader on your
system to view the installation instructions.  So most of us already
have the Acrobat Reader if we use Windows (and possibly Mac too.) The
advantage to Acrobat PDF files is they are not PC or MAC specific.

Mark Kaufman, will you please jump in on this discussion !

This is a project that should be considered as a joint venture among
ALL the Mechanical Music organizations in the world, not just the US.
It is possible to mechanically translate articles (with Alta Vista on
the Internet among others) so that they are not technically accurate,
but are readable.  Then we could view some of the marvelous articles
from the German and French publications, for instance, for so many of
us who are language-impaired and only read one language !

I don't think the attitude is quite right yet, but I think it will come
in the not-too-distant future.  It is up to those of us who think this
is one of the most important things we could do as collectors to push
our leaders toward this project.  The more voices heard, the sooner it
will happen.  This is no longer a pipe dream.  It is *possible now*!!

Sam, you hit one of my pet dreams this morning!

Beatrice Robertson