Article: “The Law of Unintended Consequences” from econtentmag.com
…a classic example of the law of unintended consequences, an object lesson to be mindful of one’s actions.
…We see similar examples in the info-pro world.
…Take the electronic delivery of periodicals as another example. Struggling to find the space in a small corporate library for the ever-expanding collection of serials, I was delighted to buy a site license and have full-text-searchable issues available at the desktops of every employee. Everything was fine until publishers increased subscription prices for electronic subscription packages, and I was forced to cut back. Since the back issues were housed on the publisher’s server, I lost access to the archived issues when I didn’t renew my subscription. Had I maintained a print subscription, I would have retained those back issues; my switch to all-electronic copies meant that I lost ownership of the material I had paid for.
A distressing example of this involves the decision of the federal government to publish many of its reports only in electronic format…
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