From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:09:31 -0600

If this is a problem for journal editors, wouldn't you suppose it
would be even more of a problem for editors at scholarly book
publishers trying to get reviews on much longer manuscripts? Yet, in
my experience of more than 40 years as an acquiring editor (which is
current today as i continue to acquire part-time in political science
for two academic presses), I have not noticed any significant increase
in the difficulty of obtaining reviewers for books.  I wonder if that
is the experience of other university press editors who may be tuned
into this listserv (such as Alex Holzman)?

There are, of course, far fewer book MSS to be reviewed than journal
articles. And many of the publishers asking for the reviews will be
long-established houses with good reputations, which may set them
apart from newly launched journals with unproven track records. Also,
book reviewing does come with at least some (modest) financial
compensation, whereas journal article reviewing generally is done for
free.

I might share this query with the AAUP-L list to see if we can glean
any other possible answers to this puzzle.

Sandy Thatcher



> From: "James J. O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:57:39 -0500
>
>
> CHE today has a piece on the decline of willingness of scholars to
> participate in peer review:
>
> http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/refereeing-in-crisis/28943
>
> -- it appears to be accessible without subscription (sample below).  The
> author writes from his own experience, not any broader base of data.
> Are there other ways of confirming/nuancing this concern?
>
> Jim O'Donnell
> Georgetown University
>
> Refereeing in Crisis?
> December 12, 2011, 3:31 pm
>
> By Nigel Thrift
> One of the things that often shocks new journal editors is the
> difficulty that they face in obtaining referees for papers. It is
> often necessary to approach a string of referees in order to obtain
> the requisite number of references. Most annoyingly of all, sometimes
> a person who has just submitted a paper to a journal then refuses to
> referee for it or has the nerve to complain about delays to the
> reviewing process occasioned precisely by the search for referees. And
> that is before we get to the people who are approached who never even
> deign to reply. More seriously, at least from my experience of editing
> a journal, the problem is getting worse.
>
> <snip>