The cost of HET research is not, in my opinion, very much about the cost of visiting
archives.  The cost is rather about the years of broad reading and study required to have
sufficient background and perspective to make a contribution.  On the cost side, what we
need above all is support for that time.  No doubt there is room for lots of improvement
on that score but my impression, no doubt idiosyncratic, is that conditions are not so
bad, and improvements would be forthcoming rather easily if we addressed the more serious
issue, which concerns the demand side.
  
Why would anyone outside the HET community itself ever want to read something about HET?
Who is the audience out there in civil society?  I think that if we confine our attention
to the economics profession, and bewail the general lack of interest among that audience,
we sell HET short.  The economics profession has problems of its own reaching an audience
out there in civil society.
  
Perry Mehrling