A funny thing I found today...

My dissertation is available online at ProQuest, linked from a slick page in the UMass Amherst (Where I did my graduate work) library. At first I thought this was kind of cool, until I found that a) they are charging people $41 for an unbound paper copy, and b) they are using a really low quality scan of the bound version in the library! Now this pisses me off on so many levels. First, here I am constantly scrounging for travel money, and someone may be profiting from my diss. without my even knowing. Second, if they had actually asked me, I could have provided a nice digital copy. Third, and most importantly, I am really annoyed not to have been asked or notified, since I am the copyright holder.

So I am going to put the whole damned thing up on Scribd for free, though frankly I find it embarrassing to put something out I wrote so long ago and wasn't so thrilled with even at the time. I think I will also send a sharp letter to the UMass Library which seems to be responsible for all this.