RE: DVD Info

Gary Handman (ghandman@library.berkeley.edu)
Tue, 22 Aug 2000 12:06:14 -0700 (PDT)

The point is, consumer electronics (and most everything else these days)
are not driven by populist impulse or the common good: the industries
involved call the shots, and those shots are based on the good ol'
meretricious bottom line. Taking a wait and see approach to DVD at this
time is not unreasonable, I guess...but sooner or later it's a leap we're
all gonna have to make (at least as far as feature films go). I'll bet
that within 2-3 years, taped movies have gone the way of 33.3rpm (the fond
collectables of nostalgia buffs). Now about all those off-the-mainstream
titles...I dunno...

By the way, after this coming Christmas, I'll bet the gap between the DVD
haves and havenots in your community closes considerably...

Gary Handman

At 11:44 AM 08/22/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>> ..one could, of course, make the case that availability, easy access, (and
>> fervent publicity) fire demand...not the other way around. I've always
>> been a big fan of building the field of dreams, and then standing by with
>> bountiful popcorn and peanuts...
>
>A few weeks ago it was a announced that sales of DVD players had reached the
>3 million mark.
>That's about the population size of my home city of Toronto -- a relatively
>small fraction of the rest of the continent (let alone the world). So what
>is the rest of the population suppose to do when libraries choose to serve
>the minority instead of the majority?
>
>
Gary Handman
Director
Media Resources Center
Moffitt Library
UC Berkeley 94720-6000
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC

"Everything wants to become television" (James Ulmer -- Teletheory)