From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:31:09 +0000 >It's not that I don't want to provide the information, it's >that I don't think the question has a useful answer. The problem here, Tony, is that unless you have spent some time building and managing library collections, you're really not in a position to tell us what does and doesn't constitute a "useful answer." >A book being >based on graduate work is about as relevant to the quality of the work >as the age of the author. All scholarship is, by nature, based on >previous work. The author's age has no bearing on a book's content. But the fact that the book in question is a revised version of a previous document most certainly does. (And while it's true that scholarship is never produced in a vacuum, it is not true that every scholarly book, by its nature, amounts to a revision of a previously-written book.) >I am more likely to give you an answer to the question >about the provenance of the work if you can give me more than just >Yes, dissertation or No as options. That was my point. YBP does, in fact, give you more than just "Yes, dissertation or No as options." They ask you to identify dissertation-based books and then to distinguish between revised and unrevised ones. That distinction is very important to librarians -- far more important than the distinction between dissertation-based and non-dissertation-based books, as the sales statistics provided by YBP bear out. --- Rick Anderson Interim Dean, J. Willard Marriott Library University of Utah [log in to unmask]