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My dad was a professor and thought leader in his space (Occupational Therapy). He's long dead so I don't think he's going to have any problems with me disclosin

My dad was a professor and thought leader in his space (Occupational Therapy). He's long dead so I don't think he's going to have any problems with me disclosing this... My childhood was spent with him complaining about pressure from his academic publisher to release "new editions". OT programs around the world would update the syllabus to call for the latest edition even though my dad (the guy writing the book) thought it was ridiculous that he had to essentially re-hash and re-word the same material over and over again. Looking back on it he was really dismayed and demotivated by the whole thing but he understood that's just how things are. According to his Wikipedia page he wrote at least seven editions of his two main works... Academic publishing long-ago addressed the secondary market issue. In terms of the blockchain aspect of this - generally anyone who thinks these existing institutions (up to and including governments) are just going to sit on their hands and forgo revenue "because blockchain" they're not living in reality. If anything (as we see here) blockchain is going to be used to as another tool to boost their revenue (assuming it ever gets any real traction anyway).

hotpotamus 4y ago
I went to college in the mid aught's and it was obvious how it worked back then. I mean, has intro algebra or calc changed much in the last couple centuries? Basically all the different editions did was shuffle the chapters around a bit to make it hard to share a page number with a classmate and changed the values on the homework problems so you couldn't complete assignments using the old edition. I don't think it fooled many people, but on the other hand, people keep wanting to eat. It does feel like there are a lot more productive uses of human work, but that's true for a lot of the economy.
- sitkack 4y ago
  > people keep wanting to eat This is not what the rent seeking publishers are doing. They are hoarding record profits. Agriculture is a single digit percentage of the workforce. https://ourworldindata.org/employment-in-agriculture https://ourworldindata.org/employment-in-agriculture
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  There is a downside to the alternative. My Discrete Math 2 course syllabus listed a book out of print since the 80s. The only way to get a copy of the book would have been on ebay for old copies for hundreds of dollars. Thankfully we didn't use it in the actual class.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Yeah, the issue there is copyright, otherwise it would be trivial to reprint it in some form or other. Obviously the solution is open source texts for elementary to intro college level textbooks, and I can't imagine any real argument to that by anyone who isn't affiliated with a publisher.
    - SauciestGNU 4y ago
      Forgoing the copyright debate, if the book isn't like a Gutenberg Bible or something then an owner could always unbind it, send it through a scanner, and share a pdf. I've also seen instructions on building a DIY book scanner that's a lot more labor intensive but does not require damaging the book. I had professors share PDFs of textbooks with the class, and I've been the person to torrent textbooks and provide them to classes full of people. There are ways around the textbook industry, and the industry is so scummy they really deserve to have their works distributed in a way that doesn't give them any revenue.
etrautmann 4y ago
Thanks for sharing - I"m curious why he couldn't have declined to write a new edition? What were the incentives such that he felt compelled to play this game? Were royalties time limited or do they just present an ultimatum to rewrite or they'll find the next up-and-coming gunner to write a new version?
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  The textbook company will wine and dine whoever they need to to get the work of a more compliant author to become adopted as an industry standard.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  If he were still alive he would definitely be retired by now and I'm sure I could ask him. With that some conjecture on my part... Despite being top of his field he was a professor, department head, and dean at a state school (University of Illinois). The current department head (according to the Illinois Salary Database) has a total compensation of $177,386.64 annually. Adjusted for inflation to the last year he as was alive (2010) this would have been roughly $142,000. Considering the level of education, work load, stature, etc this isn't exactly impressive. Being in tech my first position when I was 21 years old I was making more money than his salary at the time (2006 or so). Additionally, shortly after taking the department head position at UIC they were consistently ranked as a top 3 OT program by US News. His income was supplemented by adjunct professorships around the world, book sales (almost nothing from what I remember), and speaking engagements. More important than income was maintaining stature and standing in the field to if nothing else keep the department ranking. I'm sure there was plenty of pressure from the university on that. It's not difficult to imagine this is a vicious cycle. Between "publish or perish", the pressure to maintain department and personal standing, etc all of this was essentially part of the game. He was a total package deal across the board. From what I understand the model he developed is the most widely practiced OT model in the world (to this day). At a certain point I suppose a decision to "get out of the game" and maintain nothing other than his professorship could have very well resulted in losing everything - I don't know that tenure could even have saved him from that. Even though he made practically no money from book sales more or less "writing the book" in his field was the vehicle that drove the entire thing. It's not hard to imagine that getting off the treadmill could have resulted in him being relegated as a washed-up has-been to a C-level program somewhere.

hotpotamus 4y ago

I went to college in the mid aught's and it was obvious how it worked back then. I mean, has intro algebra or calc changed much in the last couple centuries? Basically all the different editions did was shuffle the chapters around a bit to make it hard to share a page number with a classmate and changed the values on the homework problems so you couldn't complete assignments using the old edition. I don't think it fooled many people, but on the other hand, people keep wanting to eat. It does feel like there are a lot more productive uses of human work, but that's true for a lot of the economy.

sitkack 4y ago
> people keep wanting to eat This is not what the rent seeking publishers are doing. They are hoarding record profits. Agriculture is a single digit percentage of the workforce. https://ourworldindata.org/employment-in-agriculture https://ourworldindata.org/employment-in-agriculture
mrguyorama 4y ago
There is a downside to the alternative. My Discrete Math 2 course syllabus listed a book out of print since the 80s. The only way to get a copy of the book would have been on ebay for old copies for hundreds of dollars. Thankfully we didn't use it in the actual class.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Yeah, the issue there is copyright, otherwise it would be trivial to reprint it in some form or other. Obviously the solution is open source texts for elementary to intro college level textbooks, and I can't imagine any real argument to that by anyone who isn't affiliated with a publisher.
  - SauciestGNU 4y ago
    Forgoing the copyright debate, if the book isn't like a Gutenberg Bible or something then an owner could always unbind it, send it through a scanner, and share a pdf. I've also seen instructions on building a DIY book scanner that's a lot more labor intensive but does not require damaging the book. I had professors share PDFs of textbooks with the class, and I've been the person to torrent textbooks and provide them to classes full of people. There are ways around the textbook industry, and the industry is so scummy they really deserve to have their works distributed in a way that doesn't give them any revenue.

etrautmann 4y ago

Thanks for sharing - I"m curious why he couldn't have declined to write a new edition? What were the incentives such that he felt compelled to play this game? Were royalties time limited or do they just present an ultimatum to rewrite or they'll find the next up-and-coming gunner to write a new version?

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
The textbook company will wine and dine whoever they need to to get the work of a more compliant author to become adopted as an industry standard.
kkielhofner 4y ago
If he were still alive he would definitely be retired by now and I'm sure I could ask him. With that some conjecture on my part... Despite being top of his field he was a professor, department head, and dean at a state school (University of Illinois). The current department head (according to the Illinois Salary Database) has a total compensation of $177,386.64 annually. Adjusted for inflation to the last year he as was alive (2010) this would have been roughly $142,000. Considering the level of education, work load, stature, etc this isn't exactly impressive. Being in tech my first position when I was 21 years old I was making more money than his salary at the time (2006 or so). Additionally, shortly after taking the department head position at UIC they were consistently ranked as a top 3 OT program by US News. His income was supplemented by adjunct professorships around the world, book sales (almost nothing from what I remember), and speaking engagements. More important than income was maintaining stature and standing in the field to if nothing else keep the department ranking. I'm sure there was plenty of pressure from the university on that. It's not difficult to imagine this is a vicious cycle. Between "publish or perish", the pressure to maintain department and personal standing, etc all of this was essentially part of the game. He was a total package deal across the board. From what I understand the model he developed is the most widely practiced OT model in the world (to this day). At a certain point I suppose a decision to "get out of the game" and maintain nothing other than his professorship could have very well resulted in losing everything - I don't know that tenure could even have saved him from that. Even though he made practically no money from book sales more or less "writing the book" in his field was the vehicle that drove the entire thing. It's not hard to imagine that getting off the treadmill could have resulted in him being relegated as a washed-up has-been to a C-level program somewhere.