HisKi turns into a membership benefit in 2007

[Paivi T Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Paivi T]

The board of the Genealogical Society of Finlad has decided that as of a yet unannounced date in 2007, the HisKi project will only be available to paid-up members of the Society.

There is quite a heated discussion going on about this subject on the Suku mailing list, with lots of people both for and against such a move.

Päivi T

[Hasse Admin Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Hasse]

Hiski discussion

Yes, there is a discussion going on.

The main issue is that the Society has to figure out how to fund the total activity in a time when public funding is getting more difficult to get, when lit is harder to get voluntary workforce for different tasks needed to be done and when costs in general are on the rise.

The GSF is mainly funded via membership fees.

Since the trends are towards the need to get own funding for rising costs, the Society has to figure out how to deal with the situation. Seems like the board has discussed one way of trying to get more interested in Finnish genealogy to become members and helping to pay for running the Society. The way discussed is to start providing HisKi as a membership bonus instead of a completely-free to-all service in the same way as the Migration Institute has done with its databases.

This will of course have implications to all of us, but I think we have to understand the economic reality behind any upcoming decisions.

At first I had serious doubts about a "members only" access to HisKi, but after hearing a little more about it I must confess that I can not find any proper arguments against it.

Hasse