From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 09:12:45 -0500

It's good that Michael has supplied us with this carefully nuanced
reflection on the question of library sales of revised dissertations,
but I do have some followup questions.

First, for the 2010 figures he reports, are the 89 copies sold for all
types of books or just for monographs overall? It is important to know
because revised dissertations should not be compared with trade titles
or fiction or reference books or other kinds that university presses
publish. A true comparison that would illuminate the question best
would be a comparison of revised dissertation sales with sales of
other monographs only.

Second, I made such a comparison of sales of books in Latin American
studies at Penn State over a 20-year period, which revealed a 40%
difference in sales for the entire period and a 30% difference in
sales for the period from 2000 to 2009. If approval plans are not
discriminating against revised dissertations, what is the explanation
for this pattern?  Overall, it cannot be said that the revised
dissertations in this group were more "highly specialized" than the
other monographs. So, we have a puzzle that needs explanation. It
would be good if more studies like this were done in other fields and
by other presses, to see what patterns, if any, they can reveal. And
then it would be helpful for librarians to be interviewed in more
detail about how revised dissertations are treated. By the way, I
don't know of any university press (at least any that is a member of
the AAUP) that publishes unrevised dissertations.

Third, I'd like to know where Michael got the figure of 20%-25% as the
academic library portion of university press sales overall.  My guess
is that such a figure might be close to the truth if we are talking
about sales of all types of university press books--trade, regional,
fiction, cookbooks, reference, etc. My guess is that it would not be
close to the truth if we are talking just about monograph sales, which
are still heavily dependent on library sales. I'd put that percentage
as closer to 75%.  Again, it would be useful if the AAUP actually
gathered information on this subject systematically so that we
wouldn't all have to be guessing.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Michael Zeoli <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 13:19:26 +0000
>
> I was very disappointed that the surveyors published findings without
> checking facts and contacting important sources.  YBP Library Services
> (aka Yankee Book Peddler) was mentioned more than once as a reason
> some university presses are reluctant to publish dissertations.  YBP
> was also cited as a source for (incorrect) information on university
> library collecting habits in regard to dissertations.  In their
> conclusion, the surveyors write: "It is unclear if these comments [by
> university press directors regarding YBP] represent a minority view or
> are shared by a larger group.  This is an area for future study."
> None of the researchers contacted YBP Library Services.  I wonder how
> many collection development and acquisitions librarians were
> contected?
>
> I cannot comment on university press policy towards ETDs, but I can
> clarify the role of YBP in the distribution of content and the
> relative success of ETD-based monographs in the academic library
> market.  It is substantially different from what has been portrayed in
> the CRL article.
>
> The topic of academic library purchasing of dissertations has been
> debated at length on LibLicense.  Academic librarians and publishers
> have weighed in, but the whole truth lies beyond what has been
> expressed there.  A misunderstanding developed from the loose throwing
> around of the term 'dissertation' and then attaching the term
> inexactly to Approval Plans.  Approval Plans are used in one form or
> another by most academic libraries in North America and many other
> parts of the world.  Approval Plans underpin much collection
> development work for books.  These plans involve a department of
> highly skilled and experienced selectors who 'profile' in-hand each
> academic book.  Mechanical means are also used to capture standard
> bibliographic information.  The Approval Plan selectors answer
> thousands of specific questions each week generated as part of library
> Approval Plan profiles.  The taxonomy and questions have come from
> libraries over many decades (they were not dreamt up in a back room at
> YBP).  Among the more than 120 pages of taxonomy YBP uses in building
> library Approval Plan profiles are the terms:
>
> .         Revised Dissertation
> .         Unrevised Dissertation
>
> There is no stand-alone term "dissertation".  This is an important
> distinction.  Too many discussions on dissertations overlook this
> distinction.  It is a critical one in library collection development.
> Most libraries will not purchase an *unrevised dissertation*.  There
> have been a few exceptions (the University of the West Indies Press
> used to publish many *unrevised dissertations* on topics related to
> the Caribbean which were unique sources of information; libraries
> would make an exception for these unrevised dissertations on Approval
> Plans).
>
> There is another important distinction.  Libraries recognize that part
> of the mission of the university press is to support scholarship that
> might not find support among commercial presses.  The UPs routinely
> publish *revised dissertations* and libraries collect them fairly
> strongly.  The presses provide much editorial direction and by the
> time the*revised dissertation* appears, it may in fact bear little
> resemblance to the original dissertation.
>
> Let me offer some facts:
>
> In 2010, among publishers handled by YBP, university presses published
> 720 Revised Dissertations.  On average YBP sold 86 copies.  That same
> year these presses published 10,021 books total; on average, YBP sold
> 89 copies.  There also appeared 13 Unrevised Dissertations - YBP sold
> just 21 copies on average.
>
> During the same year, commercial presses published 1,153 Revised
> Dissertations.  YBP sold just 39 copies on average.  They published 89
> Unrevised Dissertations and YBP sold just 9 copies on average.  This
> is persuasive evidence that University Press publications are valued -
> and valued above commercial press titles - by academic libraries
> (keeping in mind that most STM content is not published by UPs).
>
> As a specific example, in 2010 Penn State University Press published
> 77 new titles.  58% of YBP sales were made on auto-ship Approval
> Plans, i.e. no specific order was placed by libraries.  There were 8
> Revised Dissertations (no Unrevised Dissertations).  52% of the sales
> of these titles were made on auto-ship Approval Plans.
>
> I've traced the publishing and sales rates of Revised Dissertations
> back to 2004.  Each year since then more Revised Dissertations have
> been published and the average number of copies sold has remained
> stable.  Having written many Approval Plans over 15 years, I know that
> libraries do not punish this category of books anymore than others, at
> least not when published by university presses.  Libraries apply
> various Approval Plan filters to all titles.  Hundreds of other
> elements weigh in the balance that will ultimately decrease or
> increase sales.  A Choice review or New York Review of Books review or
> an award will boost sales.  Autobiographies, Personal Narratives,
> Reprints and Journal Monographs are just a few of the factors that
> guarantee much lower sales.  Many factors weigh in the relative
> success of a title based on a dissertation.
>
> Academic libraries as well as academic book vendors are getting tarred
> unfairly in this discussion.  Books based on dissertations may sell
> less well than other types of monographs outside of the academic
> library market, which typically represents 20-25% of university press
> sales.
>
> Incomplete reporting on sources of information in studies like the one
> in CRL perpetuate untruths and further damages the publishing
> environment for young scholars.  These untruths are then perpetuated
> anecdotally in other publications, e.g. Ry Rivard's piece in Inside
> Higher Ed last week.  It would have been easy to pick up the phone to
> contact YBP.  We would glad have provided numbers in support of this
> survey.  The old Josh Billings line comes to mind: "It ain't what you
> don't know that gets you in trouble.  It's what you think you know for
> sure, but just ain't so."
>
> Michael
>
> PS. I agree with the problem Rick Anderson indicated of mixing
> journals and monographs.  I also agreed with his observations on this
> topic in The Scholarly Kitchen last week.
>
> **************************************
> Michael Zeoli
> VP, Strategic eContent Development & Partner Relations
> YBP Library Services
> 999 Maple Street
> Contoocook, New Hampshire  03229
> http://www.ybp.com
>
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