RE: open access to dissertations

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

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
>
> -----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
k