Canadian Scholars Halt
Online Dissertation Sales
The National Library of Canada has pulled the plug on the sale of Canadian dissertations through the online retailing site Contentville.com. The consumer-oriented Web site offers theses for sale through an agreement with UMI Dissertations Publishing, which works with most graduate schools in the U.S. and Canada to reproduce and sell the papers in various formats.
But after it opened for business in July, Contentville received a flood of protests from Canadian scholars who felt that a commercial firm shouldn’t be making money off their intellectual product, the October 6 Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The company put a temporary halt to sales in late August until the National Library, which serves as the depository for Canadian dissertations, made a decision.
Then, in early October, after meeting with academic librarians, students, administrators, and teachers, National Library Director of Bibliographic Services David Balatti instructed UMI to remove the 200,000 Canadian dissertations from the listings it provides to Contentville.
Contentville spokesman Stuart R. Jordan told the Chronicle that his company did not want to be in the position of selling materials against the will of their authors, but would like to resume if a reasonable system can be set up.
Posted October 23, 2000.
|
