[Air-L] book announcement (Steve Jones)

[Delia Dumitrica]

I have also raised the same issue with the editors some time ago, and I do
understand their arguments. But those arguments aside, the fact remains
that the price of the book is prohibitive and only feeds into a system of
privileged access to information/ knowledge. While living and studying in
Canada has its advantages in terms of access to academic scholarship, what
about all of the universities in the rest of the world whose ability to
purchase access to digital databases is limited? I can't tell you how
often I am asked to search and download academic articles for my
colleagues working in other parts of the world, and then send them by
email.

But even if we put the issue of digital divides aside, there are also
professional reasons for owning your own copy of a reference book or a
handbook. Maybe the next generation of scholars, more used to reading on
the computer screens or on other types of devices, won't face the same
problem; but when it comes to critical thinking, I still find it extremely
difficult to engage with a digital copy. Just to give a trivial example,
my university's library kicks you out after 5 to 10 minutes of reading a
digital book.

Delia Dumitrica
PhD Student & Sessional Instructor
Department of Communication and Culture
University of Calgary

> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 13
> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 10:40:24 -0600
> From: Steve Jones <sjones at uic.edu>
> To: Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> Cc: 'Air list' <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] book announcement
> Message-ID: <05AAFDD2-0B87-4B45-A625-9C63B4B91DE8 at uic.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Some - not all - publishers do provide, among other things, copyediting,
> layout and design, marketing, publicity, and in some cases (particularly
> journals, but sometimes also handbooks and reference books) funds that
> allow us to support students.
>
> It would be interesting to know whether academic libraries are keen on
> purchasing e-books. Does anyone have any insight or data? They're
> certainly comfortable purchasing licenses to electronic versions of
> journals, but how about books?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve