From: Richard Brown <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 16:54:59 -0400

Rick, yes, absolutely, I would be happy to share data. Great idea. I'll
follow up with you off-line and we can discuss schedules and specs and
method. Thanks.

Richard Brown, PhD
Director
Georgetown University Press
Washington, DC 20007
[log in to unmask]
202-687-5912
www.press.georgetown.edu



On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 4:39 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> The previous sending somehow lost the distinction between Richard
> Brown's and Rick Anderson's content.  Apologies for that.  Trying
> again.
>
> ****
>
> From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 13:52:58 +0000
>
> RICHARD BROWN WROTE:
>
> Rick, you have made a very serious and sweeping claim that "an awful
> lot of scholarly books probably shouldn't be published."  When asked
> for evidence you have referred to your subjective impressions and
> well-documented declines in circulation at large research
> universities, and concluded that anyone who disagrees with you should
> just ignore and dismiss your claims.  That seems out of character for
> a sober-minded discussion about the future of publishing and curating
> and disseminating scholarly research.
>
> RICK ANDERSON REPLIED:
>
> Fair enough. It has occurred to me that I might actually have a way of
> tracking circulation in my library by publisher type, and I’m going to
> start exploring that idea here with my staff today. Hopefully I’ll be
> able to provide some data that suggest the shape of the problem I
> believe exists — at least in the library context.
>
> RICHARD BROWN WROTE:
>
> I'm hoping that librarians and scholarly publishers and book
> acquisitions and collections development services (YBPet al.) can work
> together to come up with real data and evidence that might suggest the
> best way forward for our collective efforts.
>
> RICK ANDERSON REPLIED:
>
> The problem isn’t “coming up with" real data — the data are easily
> available. The problem is that it’s held by publishers, and publishers
> don’t want to share it.
>
> Richard, you’re the director of a major university press, so you’re in
> an excellent position to help move us in the direction you propose.
> Would you be willing to share with the group the title-level sales
> data for GUP’s 2012 imprints? We don’t need to know the titles; you
> could simply report them as “Title 1,” “Title 2,” etc., though knowing
> publication type would help (so we can see the difference between
> sales for scholarly monographs and other types of book), as would some
> indication of at least the broad disciplinary area of each title.
>
> For what it’s worth, I’m currently working with another UP on some
> data that I think will help shed a more rigorous light on the question
> of what percentage of UP publications are purchased by libraries, with
> breakdowns by book type and by discipline. Watch for something in the
> Scholarly Kitchen within the next few weeks, fingers crossed.
>
> ---
> Rick Anderson
> Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
> Marriott Library, University of Utah
> [log in to unmask]
>