There are some amazing things happening because the information contained within records and archives are being made available online. There is also, in some cases, a lot of resistance to making records [freely] accessible online. One of the big ones, and it is difficult for me to see an easy workaround, is the cost/income issue. Institutions are often reluctant to make detailed indexes or electronic versions of their records available online because they then lose a potential revenue source. For example, if an institution created a comprehensive genealogical index of the records in their holdings, they would probably be reluctant to put it on the web for anyone to use for free. Why? Well, when a researcher comes to a private institution, they usually have to pay a research fee, unless they are a member (in which case they support the institution with annual contributions). When a researcher sends in an email or snailmail request for remote research, they are generally encouraged to make a donation that is commensurate with the research time expended (often a fraction of what a voyage or hiring a local researcher would be). Both of these are sources of revenue that help pay the salaries of the staff, pay for the space, the materials needed to keep the collections in good shape, and — especially, to find technically competent people to set up the systems and get the volunteers (who do most of the work) to use the systems. As funding sources from grants decrease, it gets to be much more challenging to convince the higher-ups that it benefits the institution to make things freely available.