Ethnologue data now limited until you pay

Don Osborn dzo at bisharat.net
Wed Jan 6 02:32:59 CET 2016


I noticed this change last month. Not terribly surprised but wonder how 
they arrived at the number 7 per month. It does mean that if you 
accidentally tap a link you don't want (happened to me) or are not sure 
exactly what you are looking for (as Michael implies), you can use up 
hits pretty quickly before reading relevant articles. It will certainly 
change use patterns - a casual lookup has to be very focused.

If you are doing research, most public libraries have subscriptions to 
web-based reference and news sources (I think ProQuest is one service 
many libraries use). However, Ethnologue is evidently not part of any 
such service (yet?; not sure about university libraries) - found this 
out when I stopped by the local library and took a few moments to test 
ethnologue.com on one of their computers. Maybe institutional 
subscriptions is the ultimate aim?

Don



On 1/5/2016 7:08 PM, Michael Everson wrote:
> On 5 Jan 2016, at 23:45, Shawn Steele <Shawn.Steele at microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>> Kinda of a bummer, but if that's what they need to do to make their business model work, it seems sensible.  Really nice that they're still allowing casual lookup.
> Seven searches a month? Woebetide you if you pick the wrong Ndebele…
>
> Good luck to them. I’d be surprised if their hit counts don’t fall through the floor.
>
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>
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