Traditionally, our shop has written (copied/modified) COBOL to get an
Image database to spit out required datasets to  text that an Access
database can manipulate.

I've gotten the impression from the list members that there's a better way:
ODBCLink/SE.

A new request has come down for read-only access to some Image
data.   I Would like to explore ODBCLink/SE (or whatever) as an
alternative to see which solution is more cost-effective: our old way, with
image->COBOL->txt file->ftp->server->MSAccess->client, or (ideally)
image->ODBCLink->MSAccess->client.

What can you listers tell me about the products, FOS version, learning
curve, costs etc. required to evaluate the ODBCLink/SE method?   Again,
the current situation is read-only access.

TIA, Steve