After reading the posts about the New Groves Opera edition on CD-ROM I
became very frustrated.  Why do we have to pay so much? The New Groves
complete volumes costs an arm and a leg.  Bach 2000, well there goes the
other arm and leg.  CD technology is incredibly cheap to produce and is
even a very cheap purchase for consumers.  I bought a few hundred CDRs at
20 cents a pop. With a 650 MB CD capable of holding 6,400 10-page typed
documents and newer 700MB discs and DVD discs capable of MUCH more storage
capacity, why do we have to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for the
printed version?

I don't know how many total pages you'll find in the complete New Groves
but with text and images I can't imagine it being too many CDs worth.
Heck, even selling the complete volume in a massive CD set for 150 dollars
would be nice.  But if there's one thing I know about some software
companies, it's that they slap a high price on popular items.  I don't
imagine it has much to do with production costs either.  While a title is
popular it is usually extremely expensive.  Later on, when a 2nd edition
is released, the original price falls sometimes dramatically.  I have a
feeling that if the New Groves is released in a multimedia version it will
be extremely expensive just like the paper version; that is until edition
two is released.

Wes Crone <[log in to unmask]>