Two very good questions (we've examined in the past) and an answer.

Lisa


------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:              Wed, 6 Apr 2005 17:27:54 -0400
Send reply to:          Thomas Dowling <[log in to unmask]>
From:                   Thomas Dowling <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: Two basic questions
To:                     [log in to unmask]

Mike Neuman wrote:

> First, if UMI already constitutes a kind of union catalog of theses
> and dissertations, why should we spend scarce resources to provide a
> duplicative collection?

What resources are prohibitively scarce?  Hardwarily, an ETD server
can be a hand-me-down PC with its OS upgraded to (free) Linux.  You
can do very well for yourself with free software.  In terms of staff
time, if ETD management adds substantially to your workflow, I'd say
you're reinventing too many wheels.


You're talking with librarians?  In addition to the points you've
already made: Ask them how much shelving space they'll need for the
next 20 years' worth of bound theses and dissertations--or for the
last 20 years' worth, if you want to consider retrospective
conversion.  Do they have nothing else they'd like to do with that
space?  Who pays for binding?  Ask them how big a relief it would be
to know that no one could walk in and rip a few pages out of the only
copy on campus in order to save time at the photocopier.  Ask them the
average number of times any print dissertation is looked at, by
anyone, in a given year (and then show them usage stats from ETD
sites).  In other words, how much do they pay every year to house,
maintain, and secure a paper collection, and how much does that come
to, per use?


Ask them to name any other branch of the scholarly literature that is
so routinely unavailable to researchers except through paid document
delivery (the majority of libraries will not send print dissertations
through inter-library loan).  Ask them whether their researchers like
downloading electronic journal articles to their desktops; if so, how
much value is there in providing electronic dissertations to the
desktop?


Ask them what they tell patrons at the reference desk who rightly
point out that they have online access to journal articles, conference
papers, technical reports, patents, and even books in increasing
numbers, but when they want a dissertation they're given UMI's phone
number and told to crack out a credit card.


>
> Second, what can be done to prevent downstream piracy and plagiarism
> of freely available dissertations in PDF format.  Granted that
> capability for manipulation is limited if the person getting access
> has only the Adobe plug-in, someone intent on misappropriation will
> have the full Adobe package to edit and re-purpose at will.  We
> clarified that placing a spurious version of the document in place
> of the original would not be possible, but there was still concern
> about the possibility of misappropriation . . . as is true for any
> publicly available electronic resource.  Does anyone have a
> convincing response to this concern?
>

Focus on the behavior, not the technology.  If I were intent on
plagiarism and only had access to a bound dissertation, I think having
to photocopy it, scan it, and run it through OCR would be only a
medium-sized nuisance - or I'd just buy it from UMI.  It would
certainly be faster and cheaper than writing the paper myself.

I'm not an expert here, but wouldn't judicious use of the PDF security
settings handle a lot of this?  If copy/paste operations were password
protected, would that convince people?  (I've heard rumors that PDF
security is hackable, but you've at least made it as cumbersome as the
old photocopy/scan/OCR option.)


--
Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
[log in to unmask]
------- End of forwarded message -------Lisa Charlong
Assistant Director
Electronic Text Centre
University of New Brunswick Libraries
PO Box 7500
Fredericton, NB, Canada
E3B 5H5
Phone:506.447.3458
***
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
Einstein

***
Lisa Charlong
Assistant Director
Electronic Text Centre
University of New Brunswick Libraries
PO Box 7500
Fredericton, NB, Canada
E3B 5H5
Phone:506.447.3458
***
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
Einstein

***