open access to dissertations

["James J. O'Donnell" <jod@georgetown.edu>]

Today's Chronicle of Higher Education reports the reluctance of
presses to publish in book form dissertations that have been made
openly available on the Internet.  ("Openly":  there's a hitch there,
in that access to ProQuest dissertation information is
subscription-only, but once inside that subscription, which most
universities have, the individual item may be 100% freely available or
embargoed in various degrees, at the author's choice.)  The young
scholar in many fields has two urges:  to make his/her work widely
known and to acquire the cultural capital of formal publication.  This
article suggests an implicit negotiation in progress over the costs
and benefits of fulfilling those urges.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown

The article is at (by subscription):

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Road-From-Dissertation-to/126977/

Snippet:

Ann R. Hawkins, a professor of English at Texas Tech University,
likes the idea of sharing research, but she's worried that
sharing has gone too far when it comes to students'
dissertations.

Not long ago, Ms. Hawkins heard from a junior scholar who wanted
her to consider his revised dissertation for a series she edits
for Pickering & Chatto, an academic press. She liked the
idea=97until she discovered his work was fully accessible on the
Internet. Few would buy the specialized book, she worried, if
much of its contents was already freely available.