RE: open access to dissertations

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

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

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Zeoli
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 4:59 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: open access to dissertations

Just a note of clarification to Sandy's point about dissertations 
on approval plans.  Approval Plan vendors put dissertations into 
2 groups: Unrevised Dissertations and Revised Dissertations.  It 
is true that most academic libraries exclude Unrevised 
Dissertations (with some notable exceptions such as those 
published by the Univ. of the West Indies Press).  In my 
experience (15 years writing these plans), few exclude Revised 
Disserations.  And as Rick points out, there is also an 
intermediate step: Send slips (in lieu of books).  Here's how 
that portion of a profile typically appears in libraries with 
approval plans (B-allow books, S-limit to slips, X-exclude):

B Museum & Gallery Publications
S Music Score
S Periodical Anthology
S Personal Narrative
X Programmed Text
B Revised Dissertation
S Study Guide
X Textbook-High school
S Textbook-Intro.
S Textbook-Adv.
B Textbook-Grad.
S Textbook-Prof.
X Travel Guide
S Unrevised Dissertation
S Workbook/Consumable

Revised Dissertations from University Presses are publications 
that libraries consider above many other categories in the 
'Non-Subject Parameters.' I'd guess that other factors may be 
holding these titles back as Rick suggests, such as their highly 
specialized treatments.  Other Non-Subject Categories hurt titles 
more.  One approach might be to take several categories of the 
Non-Subject Parameters for university press titles and compare 
their levels of immediate approval sales vs. orders in several 
broad subject areas.  Geographic parameters, for example, are 
ones that hurt UP titles.  'North Country: the Making of 
Minnesota' was tagged 'Basic Essential' at YBP (our highest 
rating), and yet the state geographic focus of 'Minnesota' killed 
sales (due apologies to Doug Armato!).  Sandy, I'd be happy to 
work with you if you'd like to reopen this study.

Mike