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Andrew Holborn


JonS

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Has anyone heard of the above author?

Stone & Stone are reporting a book by him due out in a couple of weeks, which looks very interesting:

56th Infantry Brigade and D-Day: An Independent Infantry Brigade and the Campaign in North West Europe 1944-1945

But ... the book is kinda expensive, I've never heard of this guy, I can't find anything published by him online through JSTOR, and his doctoral thesis at Plymouth Uni doesn't seem to be online (yet?), etc. I'm tempted to take a punt anyway, but I'm not so sure my domestic money manager would be as keen.

So, does anyone know enough about this guy to be able to reccomend the book?

Cheers

Jon

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Yeah, I agree, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing (see: "Closing with the enemy", or Hart, or "Sledgehammers," or Buckingham, etc), and anyway usually there is additional material and comment that wasn't appropriate for the thesis.

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mmm, yeah. I've come across a number of similar cases where the author published some articles or book reviews in relevant journals while writing of their thesis.

Some universities have their student's theses available on line. Buckingham's, for example, on the British airborne forces in WWII is available. But I couldn't come up with the magic incantation for Plymouth and Holborn. Then again, the author bio indicates he's only just finished his doctorate so it may just not be ready for uploading.

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The eThesis system is undergoing a lot of soul seraching at the moment. Over the last 5 years there has been the move from most unis to make theses available online as a matter of course. However, as with most online stuff, the copyright lawyers have strated to get their teeth into it. Plus there is the more usual situation where someone wants to sell their PhD as a book and don't want to give it away for free, so they can opt out of online display.

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Copyright lawyers can pi$$off.

Meh. So much for the pursuit of knowledge for it's own sake. In most cases, the thesis is being payed for - in substantial part - by the public. Also, and because of this, a number of teritiary institutes clearly retain IP to anything developed by students, which can admittedly be a bit of a cause of angst with affected students. IMO, therefore, morally and legally the theses should be publically available, regardless of what the student wants.

I'm tempted to buy the book, but I'm put off because I can't find anything else by this guy. Hiding his thesis - if that's what's going on - is working against his interests.

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It's not just a money making thing. The copyright provisos have got out of hand. Depending on what sort of thesis you're doing, you can now be in a position of having to gain express copyright permission of any author you reference if it ends up in an online form. ie. there is no longer the defence that if you attribute it properly and it is for scholarly purposes you can use it. You actually have to go and get permission to use because you are publishing publicly. It only applies where you use more than 1% of a published work, but if you are talking newspaper articles, poetry, speeches etc, that's easy to exceed. Imagine the logistics for that.

Here are the FAQs for my own uni's eThesis system. You'll note the possibility of withdrawing if you get a publisher's agreement.

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As opposed to Murdoch University? Thankfully, it wasn't named after the newspaper mogul in contrast with Bond University which WAS named after a convicted 'greed is good' style conman!

Regards

KR

Well Bond founded the university. So I guess it's only fair that he named it after himself! And he wasn't a convicted criminal at the time he founded it, so it's not fair to say that Bond Uni was named after one.

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I suppose it was not a coincidence then that the Uni is at Rob/in/a ... then.

Reading the Wiki its nice to see he is back to being a multimillionaire [250M+] when his creditors were persuaded to accept half a cent in the dollar when he went bust. hats what I call business $1.8billion paid of with $12M ....... I think I ought to talk to my creditors! : )

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Why don't you phone the uni and ask them or talk to him?

"Hello, Dr Holborn? My name's Jon. I want to read your book but I don't want to pay for it. Can you send me a copy for free because I haven't been able to pinch one out of the university database. Yes, that's right. I am a New Zealander. How did you know?"

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