This situation will change, LYNCH said. He differentiated CD-ROM from the practices that have been followed up to now in distributing data on CD-ROM. For LYNCH the problem with CD-ROM is not its portability or its slowness but the two-edged sword of having the retrieval application and the user interface inextricably bound up with the data, which is the typical CD-ROM publication model. It is not a case of publishing data but of distributing a typically stand-alone, typically closed system, all--software, user interface, and data--on a little disk. Hence, all the between-disk navigational issues as well as the impossibility in most cases of integrating data on one disk with that on another. Most CD-ROM retrieval software does not network very gracefully at present. However, in the present world of immature standards and lack of understanding of what network information is or what the ground rules are for creating or using it, publishing information on a CD-ROM does add value in a very real sense. LYNCH drew a contrast between CD-ROM and network pricing and in doing so highlighted something bizarre in information pricing. A large institution such as the University of California has vendors who will offer to sell information on CD-ROM for a price per year in four digits, but for the same data (e.g., an abstracting and indexing database) on magnetic tape, regardless of how many people may use it concurrently, will quote a price in six digits. What is packaged with the CD-ROM in one sense adds value--a complete access system, not just raw, unrefined information--although it is not generally perceived that way. This is because the access software, although it adds value, is viewed by some people, particularly in the university environment where there is a very heavy commitment to networking, as being developed in the wrong direction. Given that context, LYNCH described the examples demonstrated as a set of insular information gems--Perseus, for example, offers nicely linked information, but would be very difficult to integrate with other databases, that is, to link together seamlessly with other source files from other sources. It resembles an island, and in this respect is similar to numerous stand-alone projects that are based on videodiscs, that is, on the single-workstation concept. As scholarship evolves in a network environment, the paramount need will be to link databases. We must link personal databases to public databases, to group databases, in fairly seamless ways--which is extremely difficult in the environments under discussion with copies of databases proliferating all over the place.