Great subject.

A traditional perspective would devalue self-published work--i.e., there's insufficient demand to finance its publication, so how valuable can it be?

But if someone has ideas to get "out there" to add to the discourse, but there's currently no identifiable market for them, why not pay to circumvent the traditional system?

My earlier comment had to do with conventional press publications. The blogosphere is clearly a recent alternative. And free!

I think Monacelli Press has been a vanity press for a while now.

in academia to be legit your work must be peer reviewed.

vado's point reminds me: DaddyTypes (to which I am addicted) recently did an expose on the makers of some "smart baby program" which consisted of basically a Walkman strapped to the mom-to-be's belly that sent sounds or Chopin or some nonsense into the womb. Greg at DaddyTypes (who I know is on Archinect, I just cant figure out who he is) completely discredited the "program" and the guy who invented it by showing that his lengthy resume and endorsements came almost entirely from self-published journals and the official-sounding "institute" he had set up at his own house.

vado is right: peer review is really required for legitimacy. Which DOES NOT mean that self-published articles/books/whatever are not valid, just that they have further to go to prove themselves than if first published in an outlet with a recognized reputation.

Nothing guarantees anything.

Peer review is useful, however.

Ever ask a friend to recommend a good book? Peer review's like that, just on a different scale.

Thanks for your thoughts. I guess I've been suspicious of self-publishing precisely because it is a dodge on peer-reviewing. I wonder how peer review could work with, for example, a blog? I know some people here maintain blogs I read regularly. Have any of those people ever tried to get that work academically recognised?

Don't answer if it's a rude question selflink, but is there a particular reason why you have chosen to self-publish over seeking publication in existing journals?

re: selflink's question: Didn't Corb publish all his own books? I find Wikipedia very useful (but don't tell my students that).

Yeah, I;ve nver heard of peer-reviewed Archi books. Especially since Architectural "research" in no way resembles what a medical or scientific journal would consider research. I think it has more to do with publishing house vs. self published. There are two parts to that, 1. getting an advance to actually DO the work and 2. having an experienced publicity machine to get your book out there.

Self publishing is kind of unusual in the architecture world since its often a secondary product. I think blogs and websites are a good way to get noticed by a publisher or journalist, by the publishing house editors still carry a lot of weiht in conferring the prestige of being published. I think a better metaphor for archi books is a curator rather than "peer-review."

Print on demand still has no one other than yourself out there flogging your book. Blogs (and this site) are becoming better resources for discovering new work. My favorite blog, materialicious, is fantastic since he posts one or two good projects a day from small firms that I never would have heard of otherwise.

And lb-
Didn't Greg from DT freakin' interview you about the Eames exhibit? I'm sure he'd be willing to give up his 'nect handle.

Although architectural research is different from medical or scientific forms of research, there are established standards in the arts and humanities for evaluating research. Peer review is central to that.

Outside academia, though...?

i know of at two (semi)famous offices that paid considerable amounts of the costs to Birkhauser to publish their monographs. at the time that surprised me.

If we're talking about self-publishing monographs (not research), I think it's very different. It basically becomes a nicely-bound portfolio. I don't have a problem with that; I think a lot of firms do it, and so do a lot of artists.

FOGlite, I don't think I was ever interviewed for the Eames exhibit, unless my memory has gone completely to hell...?

i also don't have a problem, is was at that moment that i realised if you want your office published (even by a highly respected publisher) you can pay for it.
but it figures, as monographs are basically sales brochures with maybe one essay/introduction.

there are no real 'peer' reviewed books.

there are, however, many journals that offer peer reviewed papers, articles, research, etc. some of them include acsa publications/conferences, the journal of the society of architectural historians, journal of architectural education, etc. which are independantly refereed. these tend to focus on creating a certain standard of 'academic' scholarship.

then there are plenty of publications, like appx, october, 306090, assemblage, etc. which skew more towards academic (and still peer reviewed) topics but are not quite as independant as the refereed journals. in other words, they can pick their authors or dedicate their work to a particular polemic.

in the book world, think of similar things: a book by ken frampton or wilfried wang on a particular architect has a different level of implied scholarship, primarily because they've been recognized previously through these other venues as 'legit'. whereas, if an architect like, oh, hks, were to publish a book with the equivalent of a ghostwriter, then no one would take it quite as seriously academically speaking. (this is why i can remember, way back at the gsd, hearing a certain canadian architect pinning frampton to the wall before our jury, hitting him up to write an introduction to a book he was trying to shop).

monographs fall into three camps for me and, as always, it depends on the intent. the first is the 'nicely bound portfolio' (as l.b. put it): think peter zumthor's 'works' that now sells for 800+. the second is a more 'critical' kind of monograph - think the 3 volume herzog + de meuron set by gehard mack. the third is a monograph on hks - something that is a pure vanity press and has no real academic merit. i'll stick to the first two kinds for the library...

i'm constantly reviewing my peers. i think i need some new ones.

I was sort of joking about Wikipedia. I use it all the time, and I encourage my students to as well. I have reservations because some students seem to think that Wikipedia is research, or even a free essay for them to copy and paste - and I don't encourage that.

I've found your ideas on reenactment stimulating (even useful), selflink, and I think your series of essays on interpretations of Piranesi are probably important pieces of scholarship that should be put into a journal somewhere.

The semi-self-published monograph (viz Birkhauser) is an example of why I think attitudes are shifting slightly.

(lol puddles)