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[bluezebracat]

I've been hearing more complaints from young faculty about seeing their dissertations on a variety of electronic platforms/sites (googlebooks, Barnes and Noble website--and not in book form, etc.,) where they are sometimes available for free, sometimes sold.  Often, the dissertation appears without the author's permission, and depending on the site, nasty letters have not sufficed.  In one case, the website I'm thinking of offers the author's dissertation and the book, and this has been distressing to both the author and the publisher.

Previously, I had thought that putting an embargo on your dissertation, that is, limiting access after depositing it, went against the spirit of academic dialogue.  (There's no judgment here, people should do whatever they want).  Now, I'm not so sure.

Has anyone *not* put an embargo on their dissertation and regretted not doing it? Can you retroactively embargo your dissertation (or have you tried?) after deposit but before your book comes out?

[kunsthistorikerin]

When I finished last year, everyone I knew was putting an embargo on their dissertations -- granted, this was in the humanities, not sure what the rule of thumb may be in the sciences.  We all talked about it a LOT because we were all unsure what to do, and in the end everyone decided "better safe than sorry" as far as protecting our work goes. 

I haven't heard of anyone actually having a problem from not putting an embargo on their work; I have, however, seen a few ugly plagiarism moments from older scholars, enough to make me very glad that my dissertation is protected until 2013.

[supersecret]

I didn't place any sort of embargo on my diss.  I just googled it, and it is available for full-text download on my University's website and another website called "gradworks."  It is listed on google books, but there is no text available.

I also get this weird e-mail every couple of months that tells me how many times my diss. has been downloaded from the website.  Apparently, it has been fifteen times in the last year.  I figure one or two those is me, but who knows who the rest are or why anybody would want to read it.

Its not something I worry about; I pretty much abandoned my diss. and moved on to another research project, but I would understand being upset if you were still trying to publish from it.  Also, most people I know (including myself) aren't particularly proud of their dissertations and wouldn't mind if they simply disappeared.

[cranefly]

I don't see why a temporary embargo goes against academic dialogue if you share it with people that email you and ask for a copy.
We are living in a world of copyright infringement now. My own books have been posted all over the internet for free. Even my publisher ended up giving away the digital copy. 

My diss ended up online without my name attached to it, and subsequently turned up in various master's theses completely uncited. But in the case of your diss, if you're worried about it impacting your ability to get a book contract, you should be changing your diss significantly anyway, so I'm not sure publishers care.

Perhaps someone in the publishing world can weigh in on this?

[bwwm1]

From a purely personal point of view, my 2009 thesis is completely available freely on the internet from my university. I've published lots of articles from it, and turned it into a book. Nobody ever asked or seemed to care about the availability of the thesis.

[totoro]

There's been a lot of discussion of this recently on the Fora. Apparently this is done in some humanities disciplines but not at all in any natural science or the social sciences I am familiar with (econ, geography).

[bluezebracat]

I've been following the discussions on dissertation embargos on the fora, and they're usually about more 'old-school' worries--theft of ideas (whatever that means), devaluing the book, etc.  While recognizing that many of these concerns are valid, I've been leaning towards the side of freer flow of information and academic dialogue.   

The selling/availability of an electronic version of your dissertation without your permission seems to be a relatively new and growing problem.  I'm also puzzled as to why websites do this, when we have UMI, but I guess they're targeting a market of non-subscribers, and google-arbitraging (UMI abstracts don't show up on google searches).

In some ways, I do think that an embargo is pointless, and makes you feel better rather than having any real effect.  I'm just not sure.

[drj_b]

I don't understand how your dissertation can be made available for download by your university or by "gradworks" or some other site without your authorization. Don't you own the copyright for your dissertation?

In my case it's on UMI but under embargo for a few years because I didn't want people buying the printout from UMI while I try to publish a revised version of it as a book. This embargo apparently matters to the press that has accepted my manuscript.

My diss IS available from my graduate university's library and from my graduate department's library, but for reference only (as in, can't be checked out). Some may argue that it's the same as having it downloadable but I don't know, to me, someone else having possession of the WHOLE text digitally (whether for free or for money paid to someone NOT me) strikes me as wrong - it's like reducing my work to zero in value. And why would anyone then buy my BOOK when they can just download the dissertation for free? On the other hand, it's not like I'm gonna get rich off the book either. Especially not since only my mom (bless her heart) would willingly pay for a copy, I'm sure.

[peppergal]

I recently discovered that my dissertation has been circulating by email.  I discovered this when another speaker at a conference cited it, and in the coffee break I asked him how he got it.  It had been emailed to him by his advisor (whom I don't know at all), who got it from another scholar I don't know at all, who got it from someone on a search committee that had requested an electronic copy of the diss.

On the one hand, I'm happy that my dissertation is highly regarded enough to circulate in this way -- all the citations I've gotten have been overwhelmingly positive.  But on the other hand...  Well, the book it is being turned into is sufficiently different enough (the diss itself has been compressed to form three of five chapters of the book) that I think people will buy the book anyway, but damn, I kind of wish I was getting royalties on diss downloads!