From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 09:45:17 -0400

I encourage participants in this thread to read the excellent analysis
done at Cornell under a committee headed by Kizer Walker:

http://staffweb.library.cornell.edu/system/files/CollectionUsageTF_ReportFinal11-22-10.pdf

This is a study of book circulation in the Cornell libraries. It is
rigorously done.  Publishers who question why librarians are not
buying many of their books will find the report's findings to be
challenging.  Speaking for myself, it totally changed my perspective
on thinking strategically about academic publishing.


Joe Esposito


On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 1:07 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Karin Wikoff <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 05:41:03 -0400
>
> It's beyond the scope of this forum, perhaps, but I would add to the
> reasons why "an awful lot of these books probably shouldn't be
> published."  People who were never cut out to be authors are forced to
> publish in order to get tenure.  Some may not even care about the
> topic, but just cast about for SOMETHING so they can meet the
> requirements to keep their jobs, be promoted, have security in their
> positions.  This is a problem with the tenure system -- I'm not
> against tenure per se, but I am against a one-size-fits-all set of
> requirements to obtain tenure.  If you haven't something to say, you
> shouldn't be forced to write and publish just to keep your job.  You
> may be a phenomenally good teacher without having something new to add
> to the literature.  That goes for articles as well as books.  If so
> many weren't forced to "publish or perish," I daresay the quality of
> content would increase.
>
> Maybe one reason some of those books sit on the shelves untouched is
> because they don't contribute anything of value to the field (says the
> author of an itty-bitty library textbook).
>
> My opinion only -- but it feeds into the problem being discussed here.
>
> Karin
>
> Karin Wikoff
> Electronic and Technical Services Librarian
> Ithaca College Library
> Ithaca, NY 14850
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
>
> On 6/3/2014 12:17 AM, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 11:12:32 +0000
>
>
> Rick, I take your point, but I'm puzzled by your claim that "an awful
> lot of these books probably shouldn't be published." Why not?
>
> Because in the case of many of these books, virtually no one needs to use
> them or wants to read them. They are purchased by institutions in the
> (mistaken) hope that they will prove useful to the scholars or students
> those institutions serve, but instead they end up sitting on shelves and
> are never (or virtually never) used. This is not necessarily any
> reflection on the quality of the scholarship they contain ‹ it¹s a
> reflection on their relevance, which is, very often, so narrow and limited
> as to make them effectively useless to anyone except the authors (whose
> tenure bids they made possible).
>
> Please note: I am not saying this is the case for all scholarly
> monographs, only that it is the case for too many of those that are
> published and then purchased by libraries.
>
> ---
> Rick Anderson
> Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
> Marriott Library, University of Utah
> [log in to unmask]