From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 11:04:38 +0100 I agree very much with Rick's last sentence. Back in 2001 I wrote a report (available still) on Electronic Solutions to Problems of Monograph Publishing. One idea was that e-only books would save enough money (no print) to make some books publishable on economic grounds which could not be published in a print version. Many of us at that stage were over-optimistic and in any case no-one was doing e-only and no authors wanted if unless they were very desperate indeed and there was the question of tenure committees sniffing at e-only. As we know and as Sandy would/will point out most of the costs are before print - and POD is much more developed than it was then though even then Sven Fund announced POD as the way of the future. However I was once a research student in the humanities in a sub-sub division of history. If I had finished by dissertation (instead of becoming a librarian and then a publisher) my book would have been difficult to place - even if it was good scholarship. The numbers interested would have been too low. A specialised book is not the same as an unscholarly book. I have a feeling that some of the librarians posting have conflated poor books with books that have a small audience. I suspect that they cannot judge the difference (usually) but it is important in my view to make the distinction. From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 14:24:51 +0000 >If that were the case, then some books presumably would have sold ONLY >to libraries. No, that doesn¹t follow. A book that "virtually no one needs to use or wants to read" may be purchased by a bunch of libraries and a handful of individuals. "Virtually no one" is an intentionally imprecise phrase. The question isn¹t whether these books are completely useless to everyone in the world. The question is whether they offer enough value to a large enough number of people to justify the cost and effort of publishing them in the traditional way. --- Rick Anderson Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections Marriott Library, University of Utah [log in to unmask]