From: Richard Brown <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 16:54:59 -0400 Rick, yes, absolutely, I would be happy to share data. Great idea. I'll follow up with you off-line and we can discuss schedules and specs and method. Thanks. Richard Brown, PhD Director Georgetown University Press Washington, DC 20007 [log in to unmask] 202-687-5912 www.press.georgetown.edu On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 4:39 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > The previous sending somehow lost the distinction between Richard > Brown's and Rick Anderson's content. Apologies for that. Trying > again. > > **** > > From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 13:52:58 +0000 > > RICHARD BROWN WROTE: > > Rick, you have made a very serious and sweeping claim that "an awful > lot of scholarly books probably shouldn't be published." When asked > for evidence you have referred to your subjective impressions and > well-documented declines in circulation at large research > universities, and concluded that anyone who disagrees with you should > just ignore and dismiss your claims. That seems out of character for > a sober-minded discussion about the future of publishing and curating > and disseminating scholarly research. > > RICK ANDERSON REPLIED: > > Fair enough. It has occurred to me that I might actually have a way of > tracking circulation in my library by publisher type, and I’m going to > start exploring that idea here with my staff today. Hopefully I’ll be > able to provide some data that suggest the shape of the problem I > believe exists — at least in the library context. > > RICHARD BROWN WROTE: > > I'm hoping that librarians and scholarly publishers and book > acquisitions and collections development services (YBPet al.) can work > together to come up with real data and evidence that might suggest the > best way forward for our collective efforts. > > RICK ANDERSON REPLIED: > > The problem isn’t “coming up with" real data — the data are easily > available. The problem is that it’s held by publishers, and publishers > don’t want to share it. > > Richard, you’re the director of a major university press, so you’re in > an excellent position to help move us in the direction you propose. > Would you be willing to share with the group the title-level sales > data for GUP’s 2012 imprints? We don’t need to know the titles; you > could simply report them as “Title 1,” “Title 2,” etc., though knowing > publication type would help (so we can see the difference between > sales for scholarly monographs and other types of book), as would some > indication of at least the broad disciplinary area of each title. > > For what it’s worth, I’m currently working with another UP on some > data that I think will help shed a more rigorous light on the question > of what percentage of UP publications are purchased by libraries, with > breakdowns by book type and by discipline. Watch for something in the > Scholarly Kitchen within the next few weeks, fingers crossed. > > --- > Rick Anderson > Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections > Marriott Library, University of Utah > [log in to unmask] >