March 9, 2009

Question: 

I received a question for which I would like your input:

"The Conway Public Library has compiled 7 databases of local vital statistics & cemeteries that are accessible from our web site.  De we  count them as local databases?  Here is the link to the vital statistics:  http://conway.lib.nh.us/vitals/vitalstoc.htm "

Our question 36a-d for this is Federal 454-457

The definition is "Report the number of licensed databases (including locally mounted or remote, full-text or not) for which temporary or permanent access rights have been acquired through payment by the  library, or by formal agreement with the State Library or a cooperative agreement within the state or region. A database is a collection of electronically stored data or unit records (facts, bibliographic data, abstracts, texts) with a common user interface and software for the retrieval and manipulation of the data. "

As far as I can tell, these databases are not licensed, rights have not been aquired through payment (or SL or regional agreement) BUT, they certainly are databases as intended, and even with volunteers, creating the dbs has certainly cost the library something.

So, it appears that the question is whether the intent is to count databases, or licenses.

Can anyone with more history help with the intent of this question?

Thanks for your thoughts,

IMLS Response:

The official IMLS response to this is the same as what Ira and Bruce have written in previous e-mails.  These homegrown databases are indeed useful and certainly not "free", but cannot be included in the licensed database count since "...there has been no payment in the usual sense of the word. [Ira's words]"

This response will also be posted to the Wiki (Questions/Comments section) for future reference.

Thanks.