I respectfully but totally disagree with the postscript statement that
"tenure is not the issue." Tenure is very much the issue except for when
promotion is the issue! The same prolific authors who have handfulls of
articles as well as tenure are the also same persons who sit on editorial
boards, tenure and review committees, accrediting agencies, society boards,
journal advisory committees, boards of granting agencies, and who chair
academic departments and schools, etc. It is they who continue to uphold the
'publish or perish' syndrome so that tenure can be perpetuated and so that
the 'quality' of the journals in which one publishes can be a factor in the
appeasement of the p&t gods. Deadlines for the p&t reviews might just be
responsible for the "poor preparation" which is, after all, the same as
"poor-quality scholarship" (an oxymoron in itself). If research and
scholaship were not at all attached to tenure or promotion (i.e., if
scholarship existed as a pure end in and of itself), or if tenure did not
exist, I wonder if the quantity and quality of research and publication
would increase or decrease (the topic for a dissertation which will never be
written!!!).

Peter V. Picerno

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU]On Behalf Of Albert Henderson
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 12:36 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: Statement from Sage

on Wed, 10 Jul 2002 Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com> wrote:

> Purest nonsense.  Half of the published "research" is pure crap.  It
> is redundant, trivial, and a host of other adjectives.  That's true in
> library science, in physics, and in all other fields.  Yes, we can
> quibble forever about whether it is half, or 40 percent, or 60
> percent, that could be done without, but having MORE stuff published
> does not mean we've done anything BETTER.  Of course if "serving the
> academic community well" means that we can all have eight articles
> published to help get tenure instead of five, maybe they're right,
> though I still don't consider that anything BETTER.

        The statement about the quality of research is
        true. The studies of quality that I can cite,
        however, point out that poor preparation is
        at the root of the quality problem.

        Best wishes,

Albert Henderson
Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
<70244.1532@compuserve.com>

        PS Tenure is really not the issue, since the most
        prolific authors, a relative handful, all have tenure.