Skip to main content

Academic Book Exchange


I'm assuming everyone is at least passingly familiar with various swap meet/stuff exchange websites or communities. The idea is simple: you have something you don't want or need, so you offer it to a community of other folks who might actually need or want it. This is an example of the kind of thing I mean: http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php

I propose forming such a community for graduate students, postdocs, and tenure-track academics, those of us whose careers depend on our research and access to research, but who are not so financially secure that we can devote $1,000 of our yearly income to books. Our university libraries are often excellent for getting journal articles, but book-length works can be an issue. Recalling a checked-out book can still mean a wait of a few weeks (or longer, depending on who has checked out the book). A successful recall can end in yet another recall, as the original party wants the book once again. Interlibrary loan can provide access to books not held locally, but delays are inevitable, and the check-out period varies depending on the policies of one's own library and those of the loaning library. It's nice that I can get any book I want through interlibrary loan, but it's much less nice when I wait two weeks for a book, only to find that I have five days to read it before returning it. Libraries sometimes take a while to acquire new books, and once acquired, entering them into the library catalog takes another indeterminate length of time. Nevertheless, I know there are academics who can (and do) quickly purchase books though they have no intention of reading them until the semester is over, or who have received books as review copies, desk copies, or exam copies and do not intend to use them. On the other hand, we also seem to end up with books that we don't need (at least, not at the moment), or that we did need when acquired but have put aside now that the relevant work is done.

Let's shuffle some of these resources amongst ourselves. All we need to do is set up a website or forum where users can post their needs and collections, and we may end up solving some problems (and make it easier for those of us on the lower end of the income scale to do timely research). If anyone is interested, I can be contacted through this blog.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

RPG Systems: An Analogy with UI Design

The current game in our weekly role-playing group is Deadlands. The previous game was Shadowrun. Both rule systems lie closer to the “chunky” side of the spectrum. Shadowrun has a particular reputation for its complex and somewhat cumbersome rules, and while Deadlands has less overall complexity, the system has a degree of granularity that interrupts play more often than it enhances narration. I enjoy role-playing games because I like participating in a good story. The rules system provides a set of constraints for the characters, the setting, and the conflicts. They help give the narrative structure, a background against which the story will take place. Too few rules, and telling an interesting and well-developed story becomes difficult. Too many rules tend to get in the way of individual scenes or events. With the right balance, it’s possible for the game master, usually me, to be sufficiently fluent in the rules system to resolve any conflict without extended consultation of on
Post a Comment
Read more

Some Thoughts on Dharma Decline

Many of these blog entries have concerned my main research in political philosophy, intellectual property and technology. Now for something a little different, I thought I would write up some thoughts on another area of interest: Buddhism. For those who don't know, I've taught courses in Buddhism since I began teaching, having learned a great deal from my undergraduate advisor, Donald Hanks, and Ashok Aklujkar, a now-retired professor of Indian languages, literature and philosophy for whom I served as teaching assistant during my time at UBC. Thanks to their instruction, I developed a solid knowledge of the Indian Buddhist tradition, and I've used what they taught me to deepen and develop that knowledge to improve my teaching and my personal meditation practice. While I don't want to write a full tutorial on Buddhist thought, I would like to discuss a notion that prevails in some traditions, and that discussion will require one to know a few basic ideas. At its cor
1 comment
Read more

Justifications for Intellectual Property Part 1: Utilitarianism

There is no way this tutorial series would be complete without some discussion of justifications for intellectual property. While not necessarily a matter of law, some knowledge of the philosophical foundations will provide a better sense of the values at stake in intellectual property debates. Notice, for instance, that the tutorials on fair use were punctuated with appeals to values, social goods, and individual rights. Without an understanding of the moral and political framework against which the law stands, one can very easily find oneself in a stalemate, with one value pitted against another and no way of deciding which should prevail. To understand the jurisprudence around intellectual property rights, one has to have some idea of the justifying theories to which attorneys and judges appeal in their arguments and decisions. So, without further ado, let's get to the tutorial. There are three main ways of justifying intellectual property rights: the Utilitarian theory, th
Post a Comment
Read more