March 26, 2004

Faculty Members and Publishable Units

To the Editor:

I hope that Whitney J. Owen's pseudonymous essay on the least publishable unit was tongue in cheek ("In Defense of the Least Publishable Unit," Careers, February 13). The practice the essay describes is certainly alive and well in academe, but I hope Owen realizes that this practice has a direct impact on the institution's library budget. Publishing to get more items on one's vita adds to the escalating costs of journals, and therefore leads to the cancellation of more