[privateSFacct]

100% false, you literally cannot even write the RFP to bid a scanning job for $3,000.

This is classic from folks like this. They are always like, here - you do the work, it will only cost $3,000.

The state should seriously offer them this deal. You properly bid, contract, insure, fight the appeals, do all the specialized hiring, handle all the HR and disability and other claims and scan the 100 years of records for $3,000 while working weird hours with a unionized workforce.

[Asparagirl]

Again, you seem to be under some misapprehension that we are a company or are “bidding” on a project. Please educate yourself about state Freedom of Information Laws or Sunshine Laws.

We appreciate hearing that our work is “impossible” from people like you, especially since we’ve been doing it very successfully for four years now, and have so far put over 25,000,000 records online for totally free public use. This includes acquiring and publishing millions of records in New York City alone: marriage license indices from two different agencies, voter lists, and so on...

And we did it at a very reasonable $35 or $37 per microfilm roll. Because that’s what the law requires.

And thanks to the generosity of the Internet Archive, we don’t even have any server storage bills.

[privateSFacct]

If you are telling a government agency what it will cost them to do the work, you are "bidding" the project. Does that not make sense?

I don't understand why you want them to do the work. How is it more cost effective to have the government do the work then to just do it yourself?

I'll answer this question, it is not. I 100% guarantee that ancestry, if they brought in their own staff or standard partner to do this, paid a LOT less then whatever the goverment would have charged you.

And then you got things for free. And are suing over this.

Let me make a suggestion. Follow the ancestry model. Offer a free service to agencies, backed with some quality, and if you then give them even a hard drive with the images you will make them very very happy. Seriously.

On the other hand, if you tell them to do something they don't know how to do, and then sue them when they don't do it the way you want, you will be helping to make the world worse off.

I did look at the fiche count, I will say, that's a very small job. That's where you will most likely see the biggest cost difference between doing it yourself and having them do a one off.

[toomuchtodo]

> Let me make a suggestion. Follow the ancestry model. Offer a free service to agencies, backed with some quality, and if you then give them even a hard drive with the images you will make them very very happy. Seriously.

This advice is terrible, and Asparagirl has every right to hold government to the standard the law demands, as well as ensuring certain requestors are not receiving preferential treatment.