RE: open access to dissertations

["Michael Zeoli" <mzeoli@ybp.com>]

Sandy,

One correction to the number of Revised Dissertations YBP 
profiled from PSUP in 2010: it was 8, not 17 - and 3 were related 
to Latin American studies.

As for the rest, I've shared as many numbers as I can in an open 
list.  It is a bit disheartening to see how some decisions in 
publishing are being made. As in politics, themes that strike a 
chord are repeated till they gain a mantle of truth. Remember the 
Josh Billings quote: "It ain't what you don't know that gets ya, 
but what you think you know for sure, but just ain't so." You 
write:" I hope YPB will make a habit of tracking these data over 
time so that we can better gauge how serious a problem this is."

We do, and always have. When presses ask, we're happy to share 
the data. We have regular visits from presses to look more deeply 
into processes and data together. And these data (acquisitions by 
publisher and other categories) are shared and discussed with 
libraries on every visit to review their approval plans. The 
number of Revised Dissertations being published has certainly 
grown over the past decade (I did look at those numbers).  I have 
not had time to look at how library acquisition of these titles 
has trended, but even in a "bad" year such as 2010, the data show 
that these titles, from university presses, have done well 
compared with other UP titles.  This supports your position that 
these are good scholarly titles and not too narrow or 
specialized. It also confirms that libraries know it and are 
acquiring these titles without prejudice (again, for Trade 
presses, it's a different consideration).

On a somewhat heartening note, and completely unrelated to 
dissertations, there are titles being published for little if any 
commercial benefit by the university press.  Sales are dismal. 
Libraries are not buying them because they truly are highly 
specialized, but the titles are unique and important to 
scholarship.  It would be worthwhile to explore ways to give 
these titles (which I won't name for fear of 'killing' them) 
greater reach.

Mike

________________________________

From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Sandy Thatcher
Sent: Tue 4/19/2011 11:08 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: open access to dissertations

That's helpful to know, Mike, and I can take some encouragement
from these data. However, my own snapshot of one field for Penn
State over a much more extended period of time did bear out the
statistic that Helmut had given me, showing a 20% to 25% lower
sale for revised dissertations than for other titles.  I hope YPB
will make a habit of tracking these data over time so that we can
better gauge how serious a problem this is. Meanwhile though, i
can already tell you that fewer acquiring editors are considering
fewer revised dissertations for publication, based on anecdotal
evidence from conversations with editors at other presses.

Sandy Thatcher


>Who is and who is not holding up their end of the bargain by not
>acquiring those skull-crushing dissertations? In calendar 2010,
>YBP profiled approximately 1980 dissertations, about 3% of the
>titles that passed through our approval plan system, and just
>over 6% of the University Press titles we profiled. Of these,
>1250 were from Trade presses and 730 from university presses.
>Most fell into the *Revised* Dissertation group. Of the 102
>Unrevised dissertations, just 13 were from university presses (8
>from Delft UP).
>
>On average UP titles of all types sold 89 copies. The UP Revised
>Dissertations sold an average of 85 copies (Unrevised
>Dissertations fared much less well selling just 21 copies on
>average). Trade press Revised Dissertations averaged just 39
>copies sold (and 9 copies for Unrevised Dissertations).
>
>Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan were the biggest Trade
>publishers for Revised Dissertations with just over 100 titles
>each (a fairly small percentage of their publishing). Brill,
>Springer, De Gruyter, Ashgate, and Peter Lang were also strong
>contributors (530 for the entire group in 2010). Oxford and
>Cambridge were on par with the top Trade presses. Manchester
>University Press (distributed by Palgrave Macmillan), Duke, and U
>California also contributed 20-30 titles each to this category in
>the course of the year. Nearly 700 of the UP titles were tagged
>by YBP Profilers as 'Research Recommended', meaning that they
>were high quality and not necessarily too narrow (other tags
>would have been used more instead had this been the case).
>
>Judging from 2010 data at least, it appears that academic
>libraries are supporting the publishing of revised dissertations
>as much as any other UP titles. Of course, this is just a quick
>view of one year, so doesn't capture a trend or trajectory.
>
>Mike
>
>***********************
>Michael Zeoli
>YBP Library Services