From: "Elizabeth E. Kirk" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 14:02:21 +0000 Despite all of the tea leaf analysis, there are some over-arching facts that seem to be left out of this conversation which, if remembered, might add some light to the shadows... 1. Libraries are still buying dissertations. They buy revised dissertations as monographs, as Michael pointed out, and buy some--but fewer--unrevised dissertations as monographs. 2. Libraries pay for tons of unrevised dissertations by subscribing to ProQuest's full-text dissertation database. Those that don't, buy them from ProQuest as one-offs when requests for them come in through ILL (they are generally not lent, as they are held by archives). My library was doing this to a quite healthy tune until recently, when we decided to get the full text product, which ended up being a savings. 3. Approval plans are not the only way that libraries buy books. This is just the first cut to get the obvious suspects. Librarians also firm order titles; in my library, more than 50% of titles are firm ordered. Most of these are more specialized than the titles that come through approvals. This is hardly unique to us. 4. We not infrequently have a purchased monograph based on a ProQuest-accessible dissertation that also has been free on the Internet for almost a decade. A title worth keeping is one worth purchasing. You may be able to look at something for nothing, but you can't guarantee that you can keep it. 5. Purchasing of all kinds of monographs has been depressed over the last decade or more because of the hyperinflation in the serials market. And the sun rises in the East. There can be no discussion of what libraries are doing about one category of monographs without taking note of the entire environment. I suspect that every esteemed colleague on this list is more than aware of this, but it seems that this thread has drifted from that foundation. All the best, Eliz Elizabeth E. Kirk Associate Librarian for Information Resources Dartmouth College Library 6025 Baker Library, Rm. 115 Hanover, NH, USA [log in to unmask]