From: David Hellman <hellman_at_sfsu.edu>
I think that our book vendor Blackwell feels, possibly with some
justification, that I misrepresented their position in regards to
iUniverse. Blackwell does not carry in stock or place on profile titles by
iUniverse. Their availability through Blackwell as firm orders is the
direct result of requests from libraries for iUniverse titles.
I hope this clarification takes us to the real root of this problem, which
is I think to a large extent, ourselves. The thing that struck me the most
about this particular title (again which I haven't read, nor judge as such)
was how many libraries did order it almost immediately after the spam
message was sent around (this is based on OCLC records). I realize that the
subject matter of the title might appeal to certain collections and
populations of users, and therefore justify addition to a collection, but a
sense I also get is that many libraries may have ordered it without a
process of critical review, or in other words simply because it was
suggested. As an academic library we give priority to suggestions from
affiliated users, and then the public, but all suggestions are critically
reviewed before we make additions to the collection.
iUniverse is just a business that offers a service to people who want to
self publish their own works. I suspect most of these people have either
not had success getting published by, let's say, "established" publishers,
or have chosen to forego that path altogether. Now "established" publishers
do not have a perfect track record by any means related to the accuracy of
content, but they do generally have an editorial review process, and
hopefully someone accountable in the end. With a company (I just can't call
them a publisher) like iUniverse this the editorial review process is
absent, and to be fair is probably not a big concern to them. With this in
mind I feel strongly that libraries need to be, not censorial, biased, or
blocking of intellectual freedom, but rather fairly and objectively
critical of the material we add to our collections. It is very easy to get
caught up in the purely relative thinking that all books are created equal,
but the truth is they are not, and it is our job in part to make those
distinctions. I appreciate that this kind of work takes time and effort,
but it is a responsibility that we should not ignore.
With all that said would I order an iUniverse fiction title that would be
of interest to one of our ethnic studies programs? The answer is maybe...
Would I order a nonfiction title from them that purported to give medical,
financial, etc. advice (or even a memoir)? The answer is probably not...
David Hellman
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
Received on Thu Nov 02 2006 - 02:23:50 EST