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From: Meredith Morris-Babb
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Subject: An Acquisitions question
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Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:43:40 -0500
Our university of toying with the idea of requiring all dissertations
to be stored electronically, thereby freeing up space int he library.
As an extension of this idea, they want to provide free access to
these works by placing them on a web site for free viewing and
printing. I know of one university in the south that requires
electronic submission and storage of dissertations, and it is
Virginia Tech.
As acquiring editors, would you consider a book for publication
knowing its origin as a dissertation were available free on the Web?
What suggests for changes to the work would you require if this were
the case? Would this change your contractual agreement with the
author in any way? Would you reduce your print run?
I suggest we post answers to the list, as other presses and/ or
libraries may be faced with these same questions.
Meredith Morris-Babb
Editor-in-Chief
University Press of Florida
mb@upf.com
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From: "Curtis L. Clark"
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Subject: RE: An Acquisitions question
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X-Comment: aaup-l Distribution List
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:17:38 -0500
Meredith:
It seems to me the real question becomes how much a published book would
differ from the dissertation. If the author has significantly revised the
dissertation or has pledged to significantly revise the dissertation,
either as a result of her/his own initiative or of the initiative of
readers, then I doubt the availability of an earlier version on the web
would affect sales much. Dissertations are already available through the
more cumbersome process of interlibrary loaning anyway.
An additional challenge, of course, would be to discern whether a submitted
project has been significantly revised. The easiest to handle situation,
ironically, becomes when a dissertation is still in unrevised form. Then
the review process would make clear exactly what needs to be revised and an
editor could judge whether the revision would remain too close to the
already available version. The hardest to handle situation would be when
an editor is given an already revised version of the dissertation and two
judgments have to be made: (1) is this worthy of publication? and (2) is it
significantly different from an already available version? Does the poor
old acquisitions editor have to call up the web version and compare?
Hope this helps and at least gets the discussion rolling.
Curtis L. Clark
Senior Editor
The University of Alabama Press
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From: Sandy Thatcher
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Subject: Re: An Acquisitions question
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X-Comment: aaup-l Distribution List
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:32:06 -0500
My quick answer to this question is that if a dissertation is available on
the Internet, the question of "value added" in the revision becomes all the
more crucial--how much revision (which practically any book we publish
that originated as a dissertation goes through) is enough to justify asking
libraries and others to buy it? And how much "value added" do we presses,
beyond the author's own revisions, provide to justify the sale? (The latter
is a topic presses generally need to educate people better about--a topic
the AAUP Board will be discussing as a follow-up to the AAUP/ACLS/ARL
conference, where Terry Sullivan, the concluding speaker, pointed out the
need.) Presumably, if a press does decide to publish a revised
dissertation, it can require the author via contract to withdraw the
Internet version--just as STM journal publishers require authors of
scientific preprints to take them off the Internet once the printed
versions are available.
The person at Virginia Tech who is reponsible for overseeing its electronic
dissertation program, Edward Fox, has been in touch with the AAUP and is
ready to answer any questions. He has volunteered to attend an AAUP
meeting, so perhaps the program committee for the meeting next June should
consider a panel on this topic? Fox can be reached at fox@vt.edu.
Information about VT's program and plans for a Networked Digital Library of
Theses and Dissertations can be found at http://www.ndltd.org.
Also, this is one of several topics that Sharon Levine and I are involved
in discussing on-line with a group of grad students organized by David
Lashmet, the sole grad student who attended the AAUP/ACLS/ARL conference.
We'll be glad to have input from others to share with this group!
Sanford G. Thatcher
Director, Penn State Press
sgt3@psu.edu
(814) 865-1327
Fax: (814) 863-1408
