3 messages, 101 lines:

(1)---------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Mar 2001 16:44:02 -0500
From:         Chris Brown-Syed <ad6509@WAYNE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Librarians & Publishing

On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Peter Scott wrote:

> Would it be considered "publishing" if one took a Word file and turned it
> into a Microsoft e-book with http://www.ebookexpress.com ?

Is it a peer-reviewed e-book? ;-)
cbs
---
       Chris Brown-Syed <ad6509@wayne.edu>

(2)---------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Mar 2001 13:25:09 -0700
From:         Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com>
Organization: RiverOfData.com
Subject:      Re: Librarians & Publishing
Comments: To: Peter Scott <scottp@MOONDOG.USASK.CA>
Comments: cc: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU

Tuesday, March 13, 2001, 1:14:22 PM, Peter Scott wrote:

PS> Would it be considered "publishing" if one took a Word file and turned
PS> it into a Microsoft e-book with http://www.ebookexpress.com ?

In some places yes, in some places no.  The same is true of "self
published" content on a website.  The same is true of things in
genuine ejournals, and even in in genuine refereed ejournals.

This is one of the key problems with getting more converted to
ejournals without paper counterparts.  The "old farts" on a great many
tenure committees (usually only tenured folks serve on them) don't
consider any ejournals to be "real journals" and thus won't count them
for tenure, or will count them very minimally.  You'd better have some
"real articles" in "real journals" to go along with the ejournal
stuff.

Yes, YMMV.  I've worked under both "publish or perish" or "who cares"
environments, as well as some in between (all with full faculty
status and tenure), and can't say that it makes much difference to me.
I've always done some things for publication, whether I needed to or
not, and will continue to do so.  But I know it matters to many others
(in both directions).  I'd simply say that one should be sure they
know the rules in advance of taking the job, or else not plan on
staying a long time if publication is required and you're not
interested.

cheers

dan
--
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan@RiverOfData.com
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com  www.postcard.org  www.gailndan.com

(3)---------------------------
Date:         Tue, 13 Mar 2001 15:01:59 -0600
From:         Sarah Tusa <tusa@ALMARK.LAMAR.EDU>
Subject:      librarians and publishing

I must admit I'm not keenly aware of www.ebookexpress.com, but if one can
create one's own e-book, it sounds akin to vanity press on the WWW.
Someone may correct me on that, but the point is the following:  If a
librarian is a tenure-track faculty member, his/her credentials are very
similar to other tenure-track faculty at any given institution of higher
education.  There are always differences in emphasis among various
academic disciplines.  Librarians do have other options for fulfilling the
scholarly, research and creative activities category -- at least they do
at my institution.  Still, the peer-reviewed journal article is the
easiest for a cross-disciplinary, university tenure or promotion committee
to understand and appreciate.

Poster sessions, conference presentations, published annotated
bibliographies, a steady stream of book reviews, original cataloging and
some other activities I could list but would have to rack my brain to
remember, all count as acceptable and valued contributions in the
scholarly, research, and creative activity column.  This categorization
probably varies from institution to institution, but I know they are not
completely idiosyn- cratic to my institution.

The "publish or perish" phenomenon is one that does need to be examined,
but for many academic fields, it is one of the most proven and accepted
way to convince colleagues and administrators that one is keeping abreast
of developments in one's field and contributing to the advancing body of
knowledge.  This principle is certainly valid to the field of
librarianship.  While it is true that this practice often leads to the
suspicion, or even reality of a glut of publications, one would hope that
the chaff would soon fall away, as more dubious publications are
recognized for what they are.

Sarah Tusa, Interim Coordinator of Acquisitions
Mary & John Gray Library
Lamar University
Beaumont, TX
<tusa@ALMARK.LAMAR.EDU>