18th Century mentality in the 21st Century

[Paul Hargraves]

As an aside, to follow up on this a bit more, I was surprised several
years ago to learn that the parent company of Univ Microfilms was selling
my thesis, and those of all my past doctoral students, at a tidy profit.
When I complained about this to the parent company (a Bell & Howell
subsidiary, as I recall) their response was, in essence, too bad, sue us.
Many universities, apparently, require dissertation submission to Univ
Microfilms; part of the agreement that the student had to sign is an
agreement to allow this loss of intellectual property rights. I wonder if
this is still so.

Paul E. Hargraves
Professor of Oceanography
Graduate School of Oceanography
University of Rhode Island
Narragansett RI 02882-1197

On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Barry M. OConnor wrote:

> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 17:04:33 -0800
> From: "Barry M. OConnor" <bmoc at UMICH.EDU>
> To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
> Subject: Re: 18th Century mentality in the 21st Century
>
> At 3:22 PM -0500 11/15/01, Panza, Robin wrote:
> ... Where does this money come from?  An analogy to what you
> >propose would be the UMich dissertation abstracts.  Rest assured, the
> >University is providing significant funds to pay for the archiving and
> >dissemination of theses....
>
> A minor technical correction is neccessary here.  University Microfilms
> International (UMI) is not affiliated with the University of Michigan and
> the university doesn't provide any funds to it.  It is a private enterprise
> owned by some conglomerate (which one it is changes frequently; Xerox, then
> Bell & Howell owned it recently, but it's changed hands again). Thus, they
> will sell you their product and presumably make a profit. - Barry
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> So many mites, so little time!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Barry M. OConnor
> Professor & Curator             phone: (734) 763-4354
> Museum of Zoology               FAX: (734) 763-4080
> University of Michigan          e-mail: bmoc at umich.edu
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079  USA
>