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Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

theguardian.com

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Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#61

Post by roel_v »

librvf wrote: post #33

These may sound like stories of concern to academics alone. But the problem is this: much of the time that goes into writing these books is made possible through taxpayers’ money. And who buys these books? Well, university libraries – and they, too, are paid for by taxpayers. Meanwhile, the books are not available for taxpayers to read – unless they have a university library card. In the US, taxpayers are said to be…

"This is blatant dishonesty from The Guardian."

Well, it is The Guardian...

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#62

Post by amouat »

a3_nm wrote: post #26
patio11 wrote: post #3

Academics spend years writing books nobody will buy. That's practically the definition of academic writing. They go into incredible amount of depths for a very, very niche audience: other academics interested in, e.g., the experience of women in Japanese detective novels of the 19th century. (n.b. Actually a book, assuming I am remembering all the details correctly. An advisor spent years on it.) This is exactly the…

Why do these books have to cost $150? The academics won't be getting this money, those publishers essentially won't be involved in helping improve the book, and it doesn't cost $150 nowadays to get something published, even if you want a printed version.

Because it's a scam. The publisher makes money by tricking libraries into buying the titles.

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#64

Post by Steuard »

patio11 wrote: post #16
jakobegger wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you drastically overestimate the quality of the books this article talks about. These publishers will publish any rubbish you give them just to profit from selling to librarians who do not understand enough of the subject matter to know they are being scammed. I've been contacted on Facebook by these scam publishers, inquiring if I'd like to publish some of my university essays. There are plenty of alternativ…

I don't think we disagree very much about the likely level of subject-specific due diligence these publishers will do. I think we disagree very much about the likely level of subject-specific due diligence done by any publisher on any title picked at random from a university library. Peer review is, like Santa, a story we tell to motivate little children; academics (particularly in the humanities) are their own QC de…

Even if you're cynical about peer review, there is a world of difference between a publisher that sends manuscripts to subject experts that it identifies on its own and a publisher that (as in the article) asks the author if they have any friends who could take care of the reviewing.

I've served as a reviewer for textbook chapters before. Maybe I'm the exception, but I took that responsibility seriously (and sent at least one back with a "don't even think of publishing this without a complete rewrite" response).

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#65

Post by rayiner »

peterarmstrong wrote: post #48
patio11 wrote: post #3

Academics spend years writing books nobody will buy. That's practically the definition of academic writing. They go into incredible amount of depths for a very, very niche audience: other academics interested in, e.g., the experience of women in Japanese detective novels of the 19th century. (n.b. Actually a book, assuming I am remembering all the details correctly. An advisor spent years on it.) This is exactly the…

The alternative is absolutely not "no book". Academic books can do extremely well as ebooks. I'm cofounder of Leanpub, and some of our bestselling books ( https://leanpub.com/bookstore/earnings_in_last_7_days/all/al... ) are academic books about data science written by professors. This includes our #1 book this week ( https://leanpub.com/artofdatascience ). These books have free minimum prices, $15 or so suggested pr…

Data science is not a niche academic field by any means. It's a high-growth employment sector with probably tens of thousands of practitioners interested.

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#66

Post by dalke »

datashovel wrote: post #50
dalke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need to fly. Use Interlibrary Loan to get a copy of the book. It's weird but true that it's often cheaper for me to make an ILL request through my local library than it is to get a copy from the publisher. The only difference is that ILL request may take a week or three to fulfill.

I'm assuming this works seamlessly with public libraries and international public libraries as well? Third world countries?

I know of nothing, including the power grid and Google's home page, which works 'seamlessly'. If you live in the Caribbean and there's a hurricane then it will take extra time to process your ILL request, just like your power or internet service may go down. But OCLC Resource Sharing is used in 49 countries, so while it's not perfect, it is solidly present even in 'third world countries.'

Yes, ILL works through public libraries and international public libraries. I volunteered with ILL in Santa Fe, NM and handled requests from Central America. I now live in a small city in Sweden and the closest library to me - 4 blocks away - handles ILL requests. Which I've used.

But my point is that ILL was put into place to keep people from having to fly "to some obscure state University" to read someone's "magnum opus". Adding the internet doesn't mean that older solutions to the problem no longer exist.

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#67

Post by datashovel »

roel_v wrote: post #58
datashovel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming this works seamlessly with public libraries and international public libraries as well? Third world countries?

What's your point? When $15 is a week or a month worth of wages, you're not going to buy the ebook or paperback of it either. Or are you saying that all academic books should be free? Why?

The parent comment was in regard to Inter-Library Loans. But even if loans weren't available in the country I wouldn't assume all books would be purchased by individuals. For example donations, etc. According to the article the academic who writes the books doesn't have a say as to how many are printed or where they get distributed.

And can't purchase extras if they wanted to give some away to people who they might want to collaborate with, etc.

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#68

Post by datashovel »

dalke wrote: post #66
datashovel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming this works seamlessly with public libraries and international public libraries as well? Third world countries?

I know of nothing, including the power grid and Google's home page, which works 'seamlessly'. If you live in the Caribbean and there's a hurricane then it will take extra time to process your ILL request, just like your power or internet service may go down. But OCLC Resource Sharing is used in 49 countries, so while it's not perfect, it is solidly present even in 'third world countries.' Yes, ILL works through publi…

Fair enough, 49 countries of the almost 200 on the planet have Inter-Library loans. Seems it may be about on-par with how many countries / populations are without internet access. However, if we were to measure how much of the 49 countries' population truly had reasonable access to a library (within reasonable distance of their home) versus the total population who has access to the internet, I think we'd probably see that the internet is a far more sustainable, cheaper medium through which to transfer information.

I may be mistaken on the above, but Google and Facebook (among others) have initiated large projects to bring internet access to all humans on the planet. I have not heard of similar projects (on similar scale) to bring more libraries to the world's population. (maybe I've missed this).

I agree it's with the best of intentions that Inter Library Loans exist, but it seems quite dated in its thinking and really I see no reason to perpetuate this model. There are plenty of technologies out there these days which would allow digitization of media without consequences of rampant piracy.

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#69

Post by notahacker »

jordanpg wrote: post #38
librvf wrote: post #33

These may sound like stories of concern to academics alone. But the problem is this: much of the time that goes into writing these books is made possible through taxpayers’ money. And who buys these books? Well, university libraries – and they, too, are paid for by taxpayers. Meanwhile, the books are not available for taxpayers to read – unless they have a university library card. In the US, taxpayers are said to be…

Wow -- apparently The Guardian actually has a recurring section called "Academics Anonymous"??? That seems like an interesting story in its own right. Well done pointing this out. This supposed academic, is doing palpable damage to his/her own industry. This is the kind of article we can expect to be quoted by the right-wing crazies who want to shut down all universities.

As a commenter beneath the article pointed out, it also rather clashes the Guardian's own one day seminars on "How to Write an Academic Paper and Get It Published", a snip at £249 per person...

Re: Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy

#70

Post by URSpider94 »

peterarmstrong wrote: post #48
patio11 wrote: post #3

Academics spend years writing books nobody will buy. That's practically the definition of academic writing. They go into incredible amount of depths for a very, very niche audience: other academics interested in, e.g., the experience of women in Japanese detective novels of the 19th century. (n.b. Actually a book, assuming I am remembering all the details correctly. An advisor spent years on it.) This is exactly the…

The alternative is absolutely not "no book". Academic books can do extremely well as ebooks. I'm cofounder of Leanpub, and some of our bestselling books ( https://leanpub.com/bookstore/earnings_in_last_7_days/all/al... ) are academic books about data science written by professors. This includes our #1 book this week ( https://leanpub.com/artofdatascience ). These books have free minimum prices, $15 or so suggested pr…

I would wager that the cost of printing is not what is setting the high prices for these books. Short-run publishing is quite economical these days. It's the overhead cost of running these organizations -- sales forces to sell to libraries, editors, proofreaders, marketing folks, etc.

Switching to e-book will save very little of that money.

Sure, it allows for self-publishing, but a self-published Ebook is not going to look great on your CV, and the royalties are not going to matter much if only a few hundred people are interested in the topic.

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