Re: Does free lead to paid?

[Laval Hunsucker <amoinsde@yahoo.com>]

Certainly as far as academic libraries are concerned, borrowing 
does not equal reading, which does not equal consulting, which 
does not equal citing, etc..

All of the above, or at least the last three involve using.

Internal validity of measurement is therefore at issue.

Apologies for the emphasizing the evident (but hardly 
unimportant).

- Laval Hunsucker

(Hoping that the 'is not equal to'-symbols will survive the 
posting on this list. )


----- Original Message ----
From: Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Wed, March 17, 2010 12:44:18 AM
Subject: Re: Does free lead to paid?

Heather,

Is the important criterion that the book is read or that the book 
is written?  If the former, what are we to do with the many books 
that literally never circulate?  You perhaps have figures for 
your own institution that you would be willing to share. 
Librarians I have spoken to tell me that there is a large 
component of their collections of books that never circulate.

Joe Esposito

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Heather Morrison 
<hgmorris@sfu.ca> wrote:

> As Sandy Thatcher has pointed out, there are significant 
> differences between academic books and trade books.
>
> The key difference, from my perspective, is the purpose of the 
> book. For academic books, the purpose for writing, very similar 
> to articles, is to disseminate new knowledge. =A0The difference 
> in access between open access and today's typical academic book 
> print run of a few hundred copies is huge.
>
> In other words, the important criterion for success of an 
> academic book is not whether access is "paid", but whether the 
> book is read.
>
> Heather Morrison, MLIS
> PhD Student, SFU School of Communication
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com