Hey Steve,

"I don't see how Johnson Co can exclude unlicensed abstractors or any of the general public from access to the land records."

  Oh they can and they ocassionally do, concerning the unlicensed abstractors and or title companies.  They do not exclude the public from the records, but if the same person comes in day after day, they know that they are not doing personal research.
  I wish I could say the title companies are knocking down our door, but they are not.  Still looking for the fastest and cheapest.
  This Winter will be telling on who stays in business and who is forced out.  Hopefully the tow-truck joes will disappear back into the night when those complicated searches start coming over and the easy ones are already done.  I believe a lot more abstractors (unfortunately it will probably be the good ones) will have to leave the field before we can start raising our prices.
  As for NALTEA, the volunteers we have can only do so much themselves.  We also have businesses to run.  So if people want something out of NALTEA they will have to put something into, it is an investment not a government hand-out.  There were six people who worked long and hard to get it going and it takes a lot more than that to continue the work and get the results that people want.  Most investments don't pay off much in the first couple of years, it is the long term investments that do pay-off.  NALTEA is a long term investment.

Jay