CompuServe Messages

Several of our members on ISSUES and POLITICS have expressed an interest in having copies of documents like the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, etc. in our libraries. So, I bought a copy of Chestnut's "The Complete Bookshop" to get some that could be uploaded without copyright infringement or the hassle of getting them scanned. When I started looking around on the disk, one of the first things I discovered is that the "online" documentation doesn't exactly match the disk. Fortunately, the "mismatch" is that it says the files are ZIPped, and they're not. Then I discovered that some of the documents I bought the disk for were nothing but raw session captures, including gaps and error messages, from a database run by (I think) a university. There were two copies of these, not identified as duplicates of each other (which they're not, strictly speaking: they're two different runs against the same database, with different errors). Worse, one set was missing the copyright notice that grants permission for re-use: i.e., it's pirated. While I could be mistaken about this, I think there's little doubt, because the persons who provided the files didn't even bother to strip the selection menus from the session logs. I consider this pretty cheesey, to put it mildly. And I'm disinclined to buy any more from them right now, at least until I find out whether their other products have similar problems. They do seem to be everywhere, but I wonder whether that's just because word hasn't gotten around yet. Has anyone who's bought any of the other Chestnuts had similar complaints about them? Ran