From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 23:12:41 -0500 I am pretty sure the issue (I may be wrong about this) is that some authors feel that they don't have control over the publication and sale of their own work. Some authors find their dissertation on Amazon and wonder how it got there; some authors believe that such publication and sale could interfere with their ability to revise and publish their dissertation more formally--say, with a university press. The issue is control. How to fix this? The question is, who controls the rights to a dissertation in the first place? The answer to that may vary institution by institution. An institution that mandates deposit in an open repository or insists that authors sign an agreement with ProQuest or any third party has taken some of the control away from the author. That is an institution's prerogative. Unfortunately, some authors are not aware of these requirements and their implications. If the rights and control issues were made clear (and only the institution can do this), the rest is easy. There are countless self-publishing services now, and publishing a dissertation in such a manner would not be hard. It just isn't clear that this is what people want. Joe Esposito On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 1:10 AM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 00:08:06 -0500 > > Joe, can you think of a better way for ProQuest to handle this? Might > Amazon just step in and offer a three-easy-steps dissertation > selfpublishing option and be done with it? Or is there more going on > here than meets the eye? What do you think is really the issue? > > Thanks, > Jim 'Donnell > > On Wednesday, November 12, 2014, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> > > Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:10:27 -0500 > > > > Inside Higher Ed is reporting that ProQuest will no longer make > > dissertations available through third-party retailers (e.g., Amazon) > > in response from complaints from authors: > > > > https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/12/proquest-ends-dissertation-sales-through-amazon > > > > Joe Esposito > > > > -- > > Joseph J. Esposito > > Processed Media > > [log in to unmask] > > @josephjesposito > > +Joseph Esposito