From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:10:26 -0700

A Cautionary Tale"

http://chronicle.com/article/Dissertation-for-Sale-A/132401/

This article from CHE reports a recent Ph.D.'s startled experience of
finding that because he checked a box without thinking on the form
with which he deposited his dissertation with ProQuest, his
dissertation was now available for sale for $32 on the Nook reader.
He objects, I think rightly, and I hope he can reverse the
box-checking.

But what has changed is interesting.  It was always possible to obtain
some or all of most dissertations by writing away to Ann Arbor.  But
the process was cumbersome.  Intellectual access to the existence of a
dissertation came through the indices to the bound volumes of
*Dissertation Abstracts*; ordering the product was done by hand and
surface post; and the product was at best a grainy print from a
microfilm of a typescript.  Few bothered.

Now it is a matter of femtoseconds for the metadata about the
dissertation to be searched by robots; a few more femtoseconds to
create the availability in a given format; and the product available
is searchable, handsome, and easily gotten.  It's all gotten easier.

And of course the original notion of a dissertation was that it was a
published work of scholarship; the deposit of dissertation was
technically "publication" (microfilm at Ann Arbor replaced the old
practice of the privately printed dissertation paid for by the
candidate), but I dare say few if any dissertation-submitters today
think of the deposit as publication in any meaningful sense.  What to
do? At a minimum, candidates could use better information about their
options and the consequences of their options.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown University