College and Research Libraries


To the Editor: 

Miss Joan Ash's article on "The Ex-
change of Academic Dissertations," in th.e 
May 1969 issue of College & Research Lt-
braries, contains a number of misstate-
ments of fact and a basic misunderstand-
ing of the intent of the system that was 
adopted in 1952 by the Association of Re-
search Libraries. It is important that some 
of these errors be corrected and it is essen-
tial that her misunderstanding of the sys-
tem be set straight, otherwise we could 
drift back into the very condition the 1952 
report attempted to overcome. Let me deal 
first with the intent of the 1952 ARL Plan. 

I. ARL appointed a committee in about 
1948 (not 1951 as Miss Ash states) to 
study the problem of accessibility to doc-
toral dissertations, which existed because 
of the conditions that Miss Ash mentioned. 
There were others she did not list. Prac-
tically every American university had 
stopped requiring the printing in b?ok 
form of dissertations because of the high 
expense to students and because of the 
waste involved in library exchange han-
dling of texts which received very little 
use and were often of little value in them-
selves. 

To meet the needs of that time our 
Committee looked for a way of doing two 
things, first, establishing bibliographic con-
trol, with abstracts, over dissertations; and 
second, making the full text available up-
on demand thus eliminating the cost of an 
exchange s~stem to provide them in ad-
vance. The Committee studied many ways 
of solving this problem and finally ap-
proached University Microfilms to expand 
its Microfilm Abstracts to provide central 
bibliographic control with abstracts. It also 
recommended to ARL libraries that they 
use one of the microforms for the text of 
their dissertations and then deposit the 
microform in the University Microfilms' 
vault. It has turned out that most members 
found it easiest, cheapest, and best to have 

Letters 
University Microfilms do the filming, but 
this was only one of the options our Com-
mittee recommended (see Plan C of the 
ARL Committee Report in the January, 
1952 Minutes of the Association of Re-
search Libraries) . The essence of the sys-
tem was that we proposed substituting a 
system of supplying the text in microform 
on demand for the old system of automat-
ic exchanging of thousands of copies of 
printed texts of dissertations. We hoped 
that all American universities granting the 
Ph.D. would adopt this plan and that Eu-
ropean countries would develop parallel 
plans for universities in their own coun-
tries with a system of international ex-
changes. 

All but two or three American universi-
ties have adopted the plan and in those 
cases it is sometimes the intransigence of 
the head librarian that has kept the uni-
versity out. We also hoped that European 
universities would adopt the plan and that 
a system of international exchanges among 
the various countries would result. The lat-
ter has come very slowly for a number of 
reasons. First, many European universities 
held to the high publication cost require-
ment as one of the methods used to re-
strict the universities to the wealthy and 
the aristocracy. This was only a minor 
point but not one to be ignored. Second, 
changes come very hard in European uni-
versities because of the governmental con-
trols that are involved in many of the 
countries. And third, European librarians 
have had a great emotional attachment to 
the idea of exchanges primarily because 
cash seemed to be lacking for purchases 
and also because there was a kind of status 
symbol involved. They did not realize that 
frequently the cost of running an exchange 
system has been larger than would be the 
cost of purchasing publications as needed 
directly on demand. 

Nevertheless, the European university 
libraries have in recent years been study-

/ 55 



56 I College & Research Libraries • January 1970 

ing the ARL-University Microfilms plan 
and I would hazard the guess that within 
the next ten years we will see its adoption 
by most of them. What we will not see is a 
return, as apparently Miss . Ash hopes, to 
the old system of exchanging printed edi-
tions of the texts of dissertations. Why not? 
First, because most European university 
dissertations are not very good and are not 
worth the cost of an exchange system; sec-
ond, European universities will soon be 
giving up, as some of them already have, 
publication requirements for the same rea-
sons that American universities gave them 
up at the end of World War II; and third, 
the ARL-University Microfilms method of 
publishing dissertations has ' proved to be 
a very satisfactory system for making texts 
available for which the demand is light. 
It is conceivable that European university 
librarians will see the virtue of this sys-
tem. 

2. Now to correct a few of the errors in 
Miss Ash's article. 

(a) Her first sentence makes no sense. 
The text of American dissertations are now 
freely available and we are all freed of 
the necessity for maintaining the old ex-
change system, which was clumsy, expen-
sive, and not complete. But this was not 
caused as she says "by the rigid control of 
a private enterprise." It was an ARL Com-
mittee that buried the old exchange sys-
tem when it was already dead and begin-
ning to smell. 

(b) The implication of her paragraph 
beginning "the wave quickly receded" is 
incorrect. Once the ARL- UM system was 
d escribed and explained by such articles 
as Vernon Tate wrote, the plan caught on 
rapidly and most American universities 
joined. There was no need for more arti-
cles. A standing ARL committee has con-
tinued to advise University Microfilms on 
the solution to problems that have arisen 
and will continue to arise. 

3. It was never contemplated that 
American universities would make copies 
of their own dissertations and send these 
on exchange to European libraries. That is 
what we were trying to avoid. But any 
university that wanted to do this could do 
so by purchasing, at a reasonable cost, 
copies from University Microfilms and 

send them to European libniries. Few did 
so obviously because the need did not 
arise. Again Miss Ash misses the point of 
the system that ARL created. 

4. It is not true that University Micro-
films has "remained uninvolved" with for-
eign dissertations . On the contrary, it has 
made many efforts and is continuing to do 
so, to help European universities evolve a 
new workable system for the old one 
which they cannot maintain much longer. 

5. The American student pays $20 to 
have his dissertation published in the 
ARL- University Microfilms plan. Where 
does the German student get the money to 
give the university library the 150 copies 
Miss Ash mentions on p. 239, even though 
in the previous paragraph she said that the 
German universities gave up the publica-
tion requirement years ago? They may 
have done so but the student still pays the 
cost. Recent information indicates that 
German universities are now going to pay 
the cost. 

6. Under the ARL-UM plan the stu-
dent, not University Microfilms, controls 
the copyright. This is stated clearly on the 
contract which the student signs , along 
with University Microfilms. University Mi-
crofilms will handle the mechanics of the 
copyrighting but Miss Ash is in gross error 
on this point. 

7. The problem of handling classified 
information is solved simply by not pub-
lishing the dissertation until the informa-
tion in it is unclassified. I doubt very much 
if many universities are turning out classi-
fied dissertations. 

8. Likewise the pirating question she 
raises is another red herring. If the disser-
tation is copyrighted , pirates can be pun-
ished. If the danger is acute at the time 
the dissertation is submitted to the uni-
versity, the university can withhold it from 
publication until the danger time is passed. 
This could happen, for example, with a 
novel which the author thought might be-
come a best seller. But, of course, this 
problem could be solved by copyrighting. 

9. Obviously the "use of academic dis-
sertations for exchange by academic li-
braries has greatly diminished since Uni-
versity Microfilms extended its operation 
in 1953" is true. But the use of disserta-



tions has increased and availability is near-
ly 100 percent complete. Miss Ash assumes 
that an exchange system has virtue in it-
self. A university can buy and send out on 
exchange as many copies of the occasional 
dissertation it might want to use for this 
purpose at a lower cost than it would pay 
for the maintenance of a full exchange 
system in the old manner. Her last sen-
tence on p. 239 is simply unb·ue. 

She admits on p. 240 that the present 
system is successful. Why then complain 
about its effect on a system of exchanges 
which it was intended to replace? 

10. The International Association of 
Technical University Librarians is primari-
ly a European organization and it reflects 
the attitude of those librarians, including 
their kind of thinking about the exchange 
problem. They do have a special problem 
of cash but I think they are kidding them-
selves when they think they are lowering 
the cost by maintaining an exchange sys-
tem. The Association would appear to be 
perpetuating a system that is already near 
the end of its time. 

11. American university librarians are 
surely not so foolish as to give up a suc-
cessful program just because librarians in 
other countries cling to an outmoded sys-
tem. I regret very much that Miss Ash, 
through misunderstanding the intent of 
the present program, seems to indicate 
that American librarians ought to move in 
a backward direction. 

Ralph E. Ellsworth 
Director of Libraries 
University of Colorado Libraries 
Boulder, Colorado 

To the Editor: 

My purpose in writing a paper on the 
exchange of academic theses was not to 
condemn University Microfilms or the 
ARL committee. My aim was to focus at-
tention on the poor service American li-
brarians are giving to scholars who need 
foreign theses and foreign librarians are 
giving to their researchers who request 

Letters I 57 

American dissertations. University Micro-
films and the ARL committee have served 
our country well; I would like to see simi-
lar arrangements made on a worldwide 
scale. A University Microfilms representa-
tive informed me in a telephone conversa-
tion shortly after publication of my paper 
that University Microfilms had set up a 
depository for American dissertations on 
microfilm in England. This is certainly a 
step in the right direction. 

In reply to Dr. Ellsworth's specific 
points: 

1. I found the 1951 date on page 6 of the 
source listed in footnote ( 1) of my pa-
per and am sorry if it is erroneous. 

2. I cannot agree that all foreign disserta-
tions are bad: witness, for example, re-
search in the medico-biological areas 
from the Scandinavian counb·ies, Israel 
and Japan. 

3. American theses are not "freely" avail-
able to foreign libraries. Their cost is 
great both in money and access time. 

4. It is true that the author has copyright 
privileges for publication of his thesis 
in book form. The rigid copyright con-
b·ol I refer to in my first sentence is the 
regulation stated on page 238 of my 
paper which says that only University 
Microfilms can reproduce the thesis in 
microform or by xerography. 

5. The arguments concerning classified in-
formation and pirating are not mine. As 
documented in footnotes 15 and 16 of 
my paper, these were found in the Li-
b1·ary Association R ecord. I tend to 
question their validity myself. 

I agree that the old exchange system is 
outmoded. This is why I have suggested a 
new plan. Dr. Ellsworth has clarified much 
that was not apparent in the literature, 
but has not proven to me that I misunder-
stand the present program. Is better serv-
ice a step backward? 

(Mrs.) Joan Ash 
Science Bibliographer 
San Fernando Valley State College 
Northridge, California • •