Re: open access to dissertations

[Laura Bowering Mullen <lbmullen@rci.rutgers.edu>]

Of course, the library and publishing communities will have new 
data to analyze soon as libraries move into greater participation 
in patron driven acquisitions programs. If the records for any or 
all of these categories of books (based on dissertations) are 
dumped into library catalogs, we will see what the traffic looks 
like from the reader side. We have always had interlibrary loan 
statistics with which to work, and circulation figures after the 
fact, but it will be interesting to see the results of allowing 
library users to drive some of the monograph acquisition 
"decision-making" up front. Some libraries may be willing to 
start with a more expansive profile than what they've used for 
their approval plans-and include more of the dissertation-related 
titles. The results of including patron driven acquisitions in 
collection development practices may be instructive for testing 
what we think we know about what readers want to access from the 
library.

The results of "patron driven" have so much to do with content is 
made available, print and/or electronic preferences, the 
discoverability of the material in catalogs, the amount of 
management/oversight needed by the librarians, budget -and so 
many more factors.

On another note, and as always, collaboration between publishers 
and librarians is always more productive than the "blame game."

Laura Mullen

Laura Bowering Mullen
Behavioral Sciences Librarian
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Library of Science and Medicine
Piscataway, NJ
lbmullen@rci.rutgers.edu



From: "Michael Zeoli" <mzeoli@ybp.com>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 9:53:55 PM
Subject: RE: open access to dissertations

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