Comments on: University of Michigan Press to go digital http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/university-of-michigan-press-to-go-digital/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:35:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Garson O'Toole http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/university-of-michigan-press-to-go-digital/comment-page-1/#comment-1025333 Garson O'Toole Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:35:29 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/2009/03/23/university-of-michigan-press-to-go-digital/#comment-1025333 The concept of print-on-demand for academic texts has a multi-decade history. When I was working on my PhD thesis I purchased several earlier theses in the research topic area. The books I received were soft–covers that were clearly printed on demand by <a HREF="http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/" rel="nofollow">ProQuest UMI Dissertation Publishing (once University Microfilm International)</A>. The company blurb says “UMI offers a collection of more than 150,000 out-of-print books that can be xerographically reproduced on demand.” When I completed my thesis I was required to submit it to the same organization, so it would be easily available to other researchers. In computer science the workflow started to shift years ago. Many papers and theses moved online, so a researcher could download a work and read it on a monitor or print it out locally. The concept of print-on-demand for academic texts has a multi-decade history. When I was working on my PhD thesis I purchased several earlier theses in the research topic area. The books I received were soft–covers that were clearly printed on demand by ProQuest UMI Dissertation Publishing (once University Microfilm International). The company blurb says “UMI offers a collection of more than 150,000 out-of-print books that can be xerographically reproduced on demand.” When I completed my thesis I was required to submit it to the same organization, so it would be easily available to other researchers.

In computer science the workflow started to shift years ago. Many papers and theses moved online, so a researcher could download a work and read it on a monitor or print it out locally.

]]>