Re: Libraries and dissertations

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

Joe, you are missing the main problem here, which is systemic 
dysfunctionality. If librarians are not buying revised 
dissertations because they have to make tough budget decisions 
and this is a relatively cheap way to cut the pie, the effects of 
those decisions are noticed by acquiring editors at presses, who 
will then do the easy thing also, and this is not to consider 
books based on dissertations. Why should presses go the extra 
mile to expend more on marketing revised dissertations when they 
have more than enough books coming in that are not based on 
dissertations?

But, meanwhile, P&T committees continue to insist on the 
publication of one or two books for junior faculty to get tenure. 
Without having a dissertation to revise into a book, how 
realistic is it to expect that in six years a junior faculty 
member, saddled with teaching new courses and all the other 
responsibilities that come with being on a tenure track, get two 
books done in that time? If these revised dissertations are not 
published, moreover, there will be many very valuable 
books--examples of which i have given--that never get published. 
And don't tell me that somehow people will find them anyway in 
the ProQuest database and turn them into best sellers.  The very 
process of revision is often what makes them the valuable books 
they turn out to be.

This is not a problem that librarians or publishers, on their own 
or even together, can solve. But it is a very serious problem for 
the future of scholarship.  Administrators need to start looking 
into this and not just sweeping it under the rug. The problem is 
only going to get worse. And it is not just a financial problem.

Sandy Thatcher


At 3:57 PM -0400 4/18/11, Joseph Esposito wrote:
>The recent thread on libraries and dissertations touched on quite
>a few important points, but I was most struck with Kevin Smith's
>remark, with which I wholeheartedly concur, that the question of
>how libraries make decisions about what materials to purchase
>cannot be discussed without taking into account the context of
>purchasing, a context defined in part at this time by severe
>budget-cutting.  If there is not enough money to acquire
>everything you would like to, something will have to be rejected
>or cancelled. This makes perfect sense--and should be obvious,
>no?
>
>The question is how libraries make those decisions.  Here I am
>inclined to think that librarians know what they are doing, and
>before we second-guess those decisions, we should pause to
>reflect on how much thought goes into those decisions, the
>professional training of the people overseeing the purchases, and
>the community of librarians (as evidenced on this list, among
>other places) that more than any profession with which I
>personally am familiar, shares information with colleagues and
>seeks "best practices."  There is nothing like this on the
>publishing side of the business, where except for the financial
>reporting of the publicly-traded companies, which operate under
>normalizing regulatory policies, no two organizations do the same
>thing in the same way.
>
>Therefore I have to assume that if libraries are making what
>appear to be "mechanical" decisions ("We don't acuire any books
>based on dissertations," etc.), there must be a good reason for
>it.  I don't see how it would be possible for libraries to
>evaluate each and every publication that is offered to them
>without some kind of generalizations.  Suppose libraries would do
>this the "right" way, assessing each publication one at a time?
>Well, the "right" way would be the wrong way, as it would be easy
>to incur $2 in administrative overhead for every $1 saved in
>making "perfect" decisions.
>
>My experience is that most people most of the time do their jobs
>tolerably well.  I just returned from a trip, during which I
>marveled at how an industry could put multi-ton aluminum tubes
>into the air, screen thousands of people for security in minutes,
>and most of the time get me where I need to go on time.  Yet as I
>stood on the security line for about 3 minutes, the people in
>front of and in back of me, were complaining about having to put
>liquids in a separate baggie.  Perspective, people!
>
>If good books are being rejected on the misapplication of some
>algorithm, then it is the publisher's responsibility to rectify
>the situation.  This means finding ways to call exceptional
>titles to people's attention.  Simply getting a book into a
>warehouse or POD facility and letting YBP and Coutts do the rest
>is not publishing. Over the next few years, largely because of
>ongoing budget problems coupled with the rapid migration to
>ebooks, publishers will have to put more time and energy--and,
>yes, money--into marketing.  It may not be a welcome task, and it
>can't possibly be a welcome expense, but it is an essential one.
>Picking on librarians does not seem to me to be productive.
>
>Joe Esposito