mike@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (02/24/88)
From: Michael Hawley <mike@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Well, it's not exactly a pure biological fact, but it might interest you folks to know that a typical small town library holds 100k books or so (actualy that's big) and costs about $3-5/book/year to operate. And yet it's just $10k in CD-rom or magneto-optical media cost. (The actual library number comes from Palo Alto -- 225,000 books, and $2.25M per year, or about $10/book/year, but factoring out moneys directed at other services, $3-5 seems about right). Michael Hawley mike@media-lab.mit.edu MIT: mike@media-lab.mit.edu, Media Lab, e15-493, 20 Ames St, Cambridge MA 02139 NeXT: mjh@NeXT.com, 3475 Deer Creek Rd, Palo Alto CA 94034