Re: Pricing of Journals

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, C.E. Petit <cepetit[_at_]usa.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> opined:
> >
> > Your Ford analysis is inappropriate. Undergraduate students, who
> > dominate higher education populations do very well without the
> > huge collections found at research universities. On the other
> > hand, postgraduate research is likely to fail if its relatively
> > few researchers lack information.
>
> Mr. Henderson, you've just revealed your complete lack of knowledge
> about how research is actually performed at research universities.
>

[snip]

Hardly. I was responding to your 19 January speculation:

> COMMENT: Egregious misuse of statistics. Let's assume that the 236
> universities are, in fact, only 7% of all academic libraries. I suspect
> that they're over half the total number of students, or total number of
> scholars, served. That's the only relevant figure. Then there are the
> multi-campus systems, like the University of California, that may well
> count as only one of the 236 in Henderson's numbers. Basically, this
> is like saying sub rosa that Ford, because it is only 2 brands,
> representing only 17% of the US car industry (12 "brands"), has an
> inordinate influence on vehicle parts prices--when Ford's actual sales
> are close to 40% of the domestic share.

I don't know what Ford's market share has to do with data that were published by the National Center for Education Statistics. The numbers I offered were accurate and I only ask you check them before making assertions.

You will see there are roughly 3500 higher education institutions with libraries. Only 236 are classified Research or Doctoral Universities by the Carnegie Classification.

There were only 500,000 science, health, and engineering grads enrolled in 1995 out of a total of 14.3 million students -- including all institutions and all levels. Universities accounted for only 3 million students, all levels. 4-year schools 5.7 million; 2-year schools 5.5 million.

There are about 300,000 full- and part-time faculty and staff at universities; or, about 1/3 the total 900 faculty teaching in higher education. I doubt they all consider themselves researchers.

> (1) Research groups, particularly in the life sciences, generally
> include several undergraduate students who work as laboratory
> assistants. These undergraduates are expected to become familiar with
> the current literature concerning the research area. Granted, such
> familiarity is not as broad-reaching as that expected of a doctoral
> candidate. I speak from personal experience here.

But we are speaking of objective statistics.

> (2) A significant part of junior- and senior-level courses at the
> leading research universities--which frequently have those big
> undergraduate student bodies you denigrated--requires literature
> reviews in narrow areas. For example, there was a "paper" requirement
> in every department in the College of Arts and Sciences at my
> undergraduate institution--all departments imposed a research paper,
> requiring access to current scholarly journals, on a required junior
> or senior course (except the English and French departments, which
> did it for essentially all of the courses!).

Even the largest institutions send their students, faculty and postdoc researchers off to use other libraries. This is one statistic that no one cares to track and report -- the vast numbers of library patrons forced to travel at their own expense because of local collection failure.

By the way, where and how did I denigrate undergraduate student bodies? I will be glad to rephrase any statement giving that impression.

> (3) Aside from the independent research issue, a significant number
> of instructors use articles in their daily teaching.

They use course packs, library reserve, and reading lists.

> If you're so concerned about the research base in this country, you
> must also be concerned about the currency of skills of undergraduates.
> One can make an argument that one of the (many) causes for the steadily
> increasing time-to-doctorate is having to fill the gap between
> undergraduate teaching at too many schools and current theory. It's
> particularly apparent in the humanities.

I believe that the majority of undergraduates seek job skills and certifications unrelated to learned research and the use of a multimillion volume research library.

> (4) Finally, there are more than a "relatively few researchers" at any
> research institution. There are all of those graduate students; the
> undergraduates mentioned in point 1 above; the professional staff whose
> names often get relegated to the acknowledgment footnote, but are
> nonetheless involved in the research; postdoctoral fellows; adjuncts;
> etc. Specific example: the institution I attended as an undergraduate
> had about 125 biology majors in each year (virtually all of whom did
> research work as seniors, and the majority as juniors), about 140 to
> 160 graduate students, about 25 post-docs, and 29 faculty members in
> the department. Then there was a professional staff of about 25, whose
> work ranged from animal care to experimental design. By any reasonable
> definition, these are all researchers. If your definition of
> "researcher" includes only the faculty members, maybe--probably not,
> but maybe--some of your conclusions are valid. But that doesn't
> reflect reality.

I was talking about the individuals who write the proposals and author the articles for publication, not assistants

Thank you for your interest.

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
<70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Mon Jan 25 1999 - 22:53:37 GMT