Is CD-ROM Technology Still A Viable Option?
I had done considerable research for my library committee, trying to come up with a reliable forecast about the stability and maturity of CD-ROM technology. Our existing drives were 2X and 4X drives were available. While my research showed that CD- ROM sales were rising rapidly, most forecasts covered the entertainment industry, not legal publishing, although the 1994 edition of Law-Related CD-ROMs showed an increase in law-related products of 85 % over the 1993 edition. I concluded from my research that CD technology would ultimately be a transfer medium, and I proposed the idea of copying the data to a hard drive. The library committee and I felt safer investing in a large hard drive, which could conceivably be turned to other uses should CD technology fail entirely, than we did investing in 50+ CD-ROM drives that could become obsolete in six months. I approached West about permitting us to copy the data from their CDs to a large hard drive. They consulted their attorneys and decided
