[Air-L] book announcement

Wed Mar 9 05:22:15 PST 2011

Just want to note that the university libraries here, that I'm familiar 
with, are not open to public borrowing and most aren't open to public 
browsing either.

- Alan

On Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Peter Timusk wrote:

> My two cents worth or deux cent ( 200)
>
> I guess part of being successful as an undergrad is being resourceful vis a
> vie books. I still bought every course book expect professor prepared essay
> collections when I was an undergrad. The essay collections I researched and
> found in the library.
>
> What's wrong with using a university library as our universities here allow
> the general public some borrowing rights? Two books that Barry Wellman
> posted titles of I found at the local U libraries. Of course, this doesn?t
> solve the developing world access and may be the developing world should pay
> attention less to the developed world's research agenda. And here the
> general public has a hard time getting online journal access from the U
> libraries.
>
> One of my professors has this site on her web page http://www.addall.com for
> buying text books which will search for the cheapest price including
> shipping. This may put the university book stores out of business eh?
>
> Going on the basis of one large multi volume set on Research Ethics I
> borrowed a volume of from school, I would say the size was off putting. May
> be I can not cope with large books unless they are photo coffee table books.
> Volume of this size in my use are used for one chapter or less, or as a
> reference like some Oxford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy where I read the
> entry on computer ethics and put the book back on the reference shelf. I
> don't buy these reference books generally for personal use. I also have seen
> professors buying on amazon and they explain to me that they spend their
> grant money buying books. So yes being in a position of money is different.
>
> Now the Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics ed Luciano
> Floridi, I am borrowing and reading slowly and it is not a big book and
> Charles Ess is coauthor of a chapter I have read already. The cost is about
> 36.87$ CND for paperback on Amazon.ca. This is typical for a social sciences
> book (IMHE) but up about 10$ from 25 years ago I would guess. I like this
> book.
>
> In my math courses the books, and these are textbooks students are expected
> to buy in each course, run in the 80$ to 160$ range. Law books run at 25$ to
> 45$ for criminal codes and then 60$ or so for case analysis or annotated
> criminal code books in basic undergrad courses. I think in advanced law you
> would be paying more.
>
> Anyways thanks for reading and I hope this helps the discussion. I am going
> back this morning to learning Gplot in SAS for my nine to five job from the
> huge collection of published online for free SAS conference proceedings.
> Although the cheapest SAS publishing book in Kindle Edition is about 38$.
>
> Peter Timusk
> at571 at ncf.ca
> ptimusk at sympatico.ca
> web: www.crystalcomputing.net
> blogs www.cyborgcitizen.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
> [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Charles Ess
> Sent: March-09-11 1:58 AM
> To: Nathaniel Poor
> Cc: Air list
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] book announcement
>
> Hi Nat,
> yeah, unhappy that - also happened with our AoIR friends and colleagues
> Lisbeth Klastrup, Jeremy Hunsinger, and Matthew Allen, whose _International
> Handbook of Internet Research_ now lists at $260.00 on Amazon, with a
> discount down to 213.20.
> Clearly, very few researchers, much less students will buy either of these
> in the hardcover.  So far as I can tell, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, and
> others are following what seems to be a standard practice of trying to get
> maximum return on a first hardcover printing that mostly libraries will buy
> up; they will then make available a softcover edition at a lower price.
>
> (Interestingly, Peter Lang - including the Digital Formation series edited
> by Steve Jones - seems to be following a different practice, at least with
> regard to another book forthcoming, _ Trust and Virtual Worlds: Contemporary
> Perspectives_, co-edited with May Thorseth, priced at $34.95 for the
> paperback.  Perhaps Steve will have some helpful light to shed on these
> matters as well?)
>
> I would be the first to point out that "standard practice" does not of
> itself equal "right" or "justified".  Rather, along with more or less every
> other scholarly organization, we've debated the publishers vs. open source
> approaches for years, along with the theoretical and practical matters of
> print-based notions of copyright in a digital age, etc.  FWIW, I think both
> have important roles and places, along with serious deficits and problems.
> A good friend and colleague, in particular, is consistently reminding me of
> how prices like these keep important, perhaps essential scholarship out of
> the libraries and hands of colleagues and students in developing countries,
> something I'm certainly unhappy about.  At the same time, of course, there
> are also, um, enterprising workarounds, some more legal than others (imagine
> my pleasure at discovering that one of my books has been made freely
> available as a bitTorrent download ... smile).
>
> Perhaps AoIR and AoIRists can come up with better solutions to the current
> conundrums? I'd be happy to see that, of course.
> In the meantime, I also hope that these critical concerns won't diminish our
> sense of shared pleasure in the scholarly accomplishments and contributions
> made by the contributors to the volume.
>
> cheers,
> - charles
> Institut for Informations- og Medievidenskab Helsingforsgade 14
> 8200 ?rhus N.
> Denmark
> mail: <imvce at hum.au.dk>
> tel: (+45) 8942 9250
>
> Professor, Philosophy and Religion
> Drury University, Springfield, Missouri 65802 USA
>
> Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/8/11 9:40 PM, "Nathaniel Poor" <natpoor at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Charles-
>>
>> The Amazon link you sent lists the book at $US 200 (well ok $199.95
>> and then a discount, but $200).
>>
>> Is that accurate?
>>
>> I know that's the hardcover, but if that's the price how is anyone
>> going to buy it?
>>
>> Even the Kindle edition is $150.
>
>
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