Timely and Topical

The Book as the Gold Standard for Tenure and Promotion in the Humanistic Disciplines. A study by Leigh Estabrook at the Universtiy of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Among the more interesting findings:

With the exception of scholars who are doing “creative work” or whose work is in certain subfields of Anthropology, department chairs expect a faculty member to have published (or have in press) a scholarly monograph prior to consideration for tenure.

Only in History departments does a majority of faculty believe a book should be required (with rare exceptions) for tenure in their departments. Faculty with tenure and faculty who have not yet achieved tenure are similar in their views about this issue.

Most of the faculty members surveyed do not feel a book length manuscript is necessary to present their scholarship.

Faculty members are beginning to examine electronic publications as an outlet for scholarship. A small number of departments have formally considered how electronic publications should be evaluated.