From: David Hellman <hellman_at_sfsu.edu>
I just want to warn other collection development people of a trend in
publishing that is certainly questionable and likely unethical...
A couple of weeks ago I received the following suggestion send
directly to my email...
> Dear Librarians,
>
> I would like to recommend a compelling memoir, My Second
University: Memories from Romanian Communist Prisons (ISBN
0-595-34639-1) to the J. Paul Leonard Library. The book won the 2006
Writers Notes Award in the culture category.
>
> The authors' web site, http://ddusleag.home.insightbb.com contains
some excellent reviews.
>
> Thank you for considering my suggestion.
>
> Michael Kempt
I did a little investigating and discovered in the process that many
other libraries around had received this post, and had subsequently
purchased the book. Now obviously this person is doing some serious
plugging for this title, but I'm not judging the book or it's contents
(which I haven't read). I do think this method of spamming to push
sales is tacky, but what I am really concerned about is that this
title is published by a company iUniverse ( http://www.iuniverse.com/)
which is clearly a vanity press.
Now iUniverse tries to pitch itself as an alternative to the big
publishing houses, but if you look closely at their "submission
guidelines" (
https://www.iuniverse.com/how-we-work/guidelines/submission-checklist.pdf
) you will see that the company is running a "pay to publish"
operation and have no interest in editing (or fact checking, etc.) the
content of the material they publish. That burden is entirely on the
shoulders of the author.
My sentiment is that if you purchase titles from iUniverse you are
potentially doing your users a disservice and even possibly providing
them with inaccurate information. The difference between legitimate
publishers and this type is blurring in light of issues like print on
demand and online sales (Amazon for example carries these titles), but
what is even more disturbing is that our main book vendor, Blackwell,
also carries them. I would expect Blackwell at least to have higher
standards. In the end I know that this is not the kind of material we
want our users relying on. So buyer beware...
David
********************************************************************
David S. Hellman
Collection Development Coordinator
Associate Librarian (Associate Professor)
Collection Access and Management Services
J. Paul Leonard Library - San Francisco State University
1630 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132-4030
voice: 415-405-0686 - fax: 415-338-6940
email: hellman@sfsu.edu - web: http://www.library.sfsu.edu
********************************************************************
"SpongeBob is a friendly sponge who lives with his pet snail Gary
in a pineapple under the sea."
-NY Times
Received on Thu Oct 26 2006 - 01:15:53 EDT