Wednesday, July 31, 2002, 7:12:22 AM, you wrote: AH> Yes, Price also noted that if you know how many AH> papers are published, you can reliably estimate the AH> number of authors. Price also pointed out that this AH> measure of 'science productivity' has been true AH> for over 100 years. As far as I know, the science AH> of scientometrics has not detected any change in AH> recent decades. If there have been no changes, I'd appreciate some more recent references to such. The changes of the last 30 and 40 years since Price wrote have been greater than in the 300 or 400 years preceding. Changes in technology, changes in grant funding, and changes in educational policies and expectations are just a few of them. Even though I still remember some of my several years of Latin and how to use a slide rule doesn't mean that I regularly use either one today. AH> The growth of spending on R&D is a more important AH> 'input' factor than numbers of papers per author. AH> It is most easily correlated with the 'output' of AH> publication. My question is, why doesn't the growth AH> of spending on libraries keep up with spending on AH> R&D? [JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION AH> SCIENCE. 50:366-380. 1999]. Yes, it would be great if spending on libraries kept up with spending on R&D. However, R&D is only one factor in the budget generation and in the usage of academic libraries. The needs of most university libraries are driven by the educational needs of students at the various levels, and secondarily by the research needs of the faculty. And a great many of those faculty have research needs that aren't driven by outside funding. I still need to purchase or provide access to materials for the professor studying Shelley or Marlowe, even though s/he probably doesn't have a fat research grant like his colleagues in physics or computer science. As soon as you have a magic answer on how to get increased R&D funding into the library, be sure to let us know. You could sell libraries the secret and retire a wealthy man. It certainly isn't for lack of trying by librarians that most of us have been unsuccessful in getting significant chunks of the R&D dollars for the library. AH> The SERIALS PRICES PROJECT REPORT of the Association AH> of Research Libraries (1989) made 'excessive publication' AH> a leading factor in its propaganda campaign of the early AH> 1990s. The theme was amplified by SCIENCE, THE SCIENTIST, AH> 60 MINUTES, and THE NEW YORK TIMES, whose editors never AH> bothered to check the reliability of the ARL as a AH> objective source. As always, one man's "objective source" is another man's "biased source". We all have our own agendas, and we're certainly familiar with yours. I believe, Mr. Henderson, that we'd all be able to work together for a common goal if you weren't so busy biting the hand that feeds you. I don't know of a single librarian that doesn't feel the need for more funding for materials of all types, and the staff to support their acquisition, storage, and access. I also don't know of a single librarian that doesn't regularly make pleas to the university administration for greater funding and the reasons therefor. Just because librarians are taking advantage of new technologies to obtain materials that researchers (and others) request doesn't mean that if it were "the old world" instead of "the new world" we wouldn't love to have more shelves filled with these items. AH> The same sort of peer review that serves editors AH> supports approvals of academic research grants now AH> in the tens of billions of dollars with huge AH> overhead allowances going to profitability. AH> It is pitiful. I know you're really convinced of this "profitability" in academia. Profitability in the business world can produce fortunes for top executives and profits for shareholders, as well as income for the employees. If that profitability were present in academia, the same should hold true for the university. Those of us who are employees get income for doing our job. There are no shareholders as such. The top university administrators certainly make six figure salaries, but I've not read of any of them being taken away in handcuffs because they've diverted funds to their million dollar mansions, bought any private jets, or had interest free loans of tens of millions of dollars. AH> I have made a point of the ratio of AH> interlibrary borrowing to total numbers of volumes, AH> something that I call COLLECTION FAILURE QUOTIENT, AH> but very little about acquisitions spending. That number will continue to increase as the amount of publishing increases, and as the prices of those publication continue to increase faster than almost any other component of the economy. AH> Scorn, and I am not certain that is the right word, AH> or something of the sort is deserved by the 'enemies AH> of the library' described by Crawford and Gorman in AH> FUTURE LIBRARIES [1995]. Well, scorn is fine if all you want to do is to attack the offenders. If you want to reform them, however, there are certainly better techniques. cheers dan -- Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan@RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA www.riverofdata.com www.gailndan.com Stop Global Whining!
