James Hynes

Here's something alarming, at least for writers who graduated (like I did) from one of the various University of Iowa writing programs: like a lot of universities, Iowa has cut a deal with Google to publish online, for free, the contents of all its dissertations. Starting this semester, all graduate students who are writing dissertations or theses are going to be required to sign away permission to post their work, in its entirety, on the Internet, through Google's ad-driven Print program. Right now this applies only to new graduates, who are required to sign off on a form when they submit the first drafts of their theses. (This is a process known to grad students everywhere as "first submission," which has a kind of ominous ring to it now, under the circumstances.) But apparently the plan is to publish all the theses in the Iowa library eventually, including the work of everyone who ever graduated from the Writers' Workshop. You can read all about it in an open letter from Kembrew McLeod, an associate professor of communication studies at Iowa, who has kindly given me permission to post it.

I can understand that for those who are writing or have written scholarly dissertations, this may not be a bad thing, but for those of us who graduated from the Writers' Workshop or one of the other creative writing programs at Iowa, it's pretty infuriating. In my own case, my Iowa thesis is an early version of my first novel, The Wild Colonial Boy. That early version is called Strayed Away, and it's roughly 95 percent the same as the published version, which (I'd like the University of Iowa and Google to note) is under copyright, still in print, and available for sale.

But while this ill-advised plan is bad enough for those of us who have already published our theses, it could be a disaster for those who are still trying to publish theirs. It may have a chilling effect on editors, who may wonder why they should pay to publish something (a novel, a story, a play, whatever) that people can read online, for free. And there's also the fact that some folks may not want their early work broadcast to all four corners of the globe. Some may, of course, but the point is, it ought to be a choice, not a graduation requirement. Things are hard enough for creative writers without taking control of our own work out of our hands. Hey, Google: whatever happened to "don't be evil"?

It's also true that hard copies of all of Iowa's graduation theses are publically available in the graduate library (except for a few famous ones, like Flannery O'Connor's, which are kept under lock and key in the special collection). I don't have a problem with that, just as I don't have a problem with the fact that people can read my books for free in public libraries. I don't even have a problem with Google or Amazon allowing readers to see a few pages from each of my books. I  have even given away one of my own stories, for free, on this website. But the point is, it's my work, to do with as I see fit. For a university—and not just any university, but the home of the Writers' Workshop!—to allow copyrighted creative work—which is hard enough to market as it is—to be disseminated, in its entirety, around the world, for free, is way beyond the pale. If Iowa takes itself seriously as "the writing university," then it needs to treat its writers, both its current students and its alumni, with a lot more respect than this.

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