Re: Recent Comments by Albert Henderson

From: Albert Henderson <chessNIC_at_COMPUSERVE.COM>
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 23:19:45 -0500

on Thu, 25 Jan 2001 Greg Kuperberg <greg_at_MATH.UCDAVIS.EDU> wrote:
 
> On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 09:50:42AM -0500, Albert Henderson wrote:
> > You have my sympathy.
>
> Thanks but I don't need it. I don't think that the university is
> short-changing me. My access to math research is as good as it ever
> was thanks to MathSciNet, which is unfortunately proprietary but not
> expensive; the math arXiv, which is free; and home pages and other
> Internet sources.

        Maybe. Here is a note from my book, ELECTRONIC DATABASES
        AND PUBLISHING on a publisher's response to the library
        crisis:

        "In an effort to contain costs, the publishers of Mathematical
        Reviews decided in 1989 to keep the number of reviews at
        approximately 1989 levels. In order to do this and maintain
        comprehensive coverage of the literature within the scope of
        Mathematical Reviews, they increased the percentage of items
        that are not given reviews ...." p. 219.

> Shields Library is a Taj Mahal among campus buildings. It has tons of
> books and an ample, efficient, smiling staff. It has nice furniture
> and beautiful computer terminals. If it doesn't have absolutely every
> math journal, it has most of the important ones. That it is so big and
> unwieldy is the real problem. Spending more money on Shields would not
> bring it down to a human scale, nor would it bring it any closer to my
> office. In any case it isn't far away. It wouldn't beat the Internet
> no matter how much money they spent on it.
>
> I agree with you that the administration should listen to the departments
> more on library spending. The math and physics departments would
> probably cut library spending in favor of their own budgets if they
> could. The main reason that Shields goes beyond the utilitarian minimum
> is to recruit undergraduates, and even more their nostalgic parents.
> That could be a fine reason to spend money, but it's not for the benefit
> of my research.
>
> As I said, your most recent piece in Society does lie somewhere in
> Shields. Why not also put it on your web page like everyone else does?

        Golly. I don't have a web page. Nor would I infringe
        on my publishers' copyrights.

        Best wishes,

Albert Henderson
Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
<70244.1532_at_compuserve.com>
Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT