On June 19, 2010, Georgetown University Press Director Richard Brown assumed leadership of AAUP. Brown will serve a one-year term, and succeeds Kathleen Keane, director of Johns Hopkins University Press, who remains on the association’s Board of Directors.
Brown began his work in publishing as an editor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, a research institute studying international affairs and the presidency. He then spent nine years in religion publishing, first as an editor at Pilgrim Press and then as director of Westminster John Knox Press. In 2001, he began his tenure as director of Georgetown University Press. The Press was founded in 1964, and has been a member of AAUP since 1986. Under Brown’s leadership, the Press has strengthened its reputation in its core subject areas, including languages and linguistics, international affairs, and public policy.
Brown comes to the association’s presidency with an already significant history of service to AAUP, having chaired the AAUP Annual Meeting Program Committee in 2006, and the Task Force on Committees in 2009. He has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2007, serving last year as President-Elect.
His distinguished academic achievements include a PhD in religious studies from the University of Virginia, an MA in theological studies from Emory University; an MBA from the University of Louisville; and an AB in English, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In his inaugural address on June 19 at the 2010 AAUP Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Brown urged listeners to think about scholarly publishing as in “a perpetual state of transition,” rather than the “crisis” it is so often made out to be. He proposed that publishers think of themselves as engaged in a “moral activity,” and to that end, that all member presses should confront three “orientations” within their organizations: economic, social, and cultural. He concluded with the conviction that the collective talent of the scholarly publishing community, along with the inherent significance and necessity of the enterprise, is reason for “not naïve optimism, but hope.”
AAUP posthumously awarded the 2010 AAUP Constituency Award to Will Powers, for 11 years the design and production manager at the Minnesota Historical Society Press (MHSP). The award was established in 1991 to honor staff at member presses who have demonstrated active leadership and service to the association and the university press community.
The award was announced on June 17 at the 2010 AAUP Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City. Betsy Litz, Production Manager at Princeton University Press, introduced the award, describing Powers as “embody[ing] everything that is so wonderful about the AAUP.” The award was accepted by Pamela McClanahan, director of the MHSP, on behalf of his wife, Cheryl Miller.
Among Powers’ numerous accomplishments while at the MHS Press, five of the projects he worked on were honored by the annual AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Show. He began his career in publishing as a typesetter at Stinehour Press in Vermont. He went on to establish his own fine press, Amaranth Press, in San Francisco, while also doing editorial work for the University of California Press and North Point Press. Moving to Minneapolis in 1988, he worked briefly for an advertising agency, and returned to book design with Stanton Publishing Services (BookMobile) before assuming his role at MHSP.
Over the years, Powers served the AAUP community in a variety of ways, with a remarkable generosity of spirit. Colleagues remember his willingness to share advice and information with others on the AAUP email lists, and to mentor students, interns, and young colleagues. He moderated and participated in numerous panels at the production managers and annual meetings. At the 2004 Annual Meeting, he distributed a chapbook he had developed, New Types for New Books: What We Have; What We Need, which subsequently went into three printings. He was a member of the Design & Production Committee in 2007, and served as its chair in 2008.
Powers passed away on August 25, 2009. Together, the Minnesota Historical Society Press and his wife Cheryl Miller compiled a chapbook celebrating his life and work, A Tribute to Will Powers, where colleagues, family, and friends shared memories and photographs.
The 2010-2011 AAUP committees and their respective chairs have been announced and may be viewed on the AAUP site. New this year are the Eco Publishing and Library Relations Committees. The Book, Jacket, and Journal Show will now be handled by a separate committee, allowing the Design and Production Committee to focus on other issues, including digital workflow.
View the charges for the various committees and task forces in the members-only section of the website (password required).
Judging of the 2010 AAUP Book, Jacket, & Journal show took place January 28-29 at the AAUP Central Office in New York. Throughout its history, the AAUP Book, Jacket, & Journal Show has honored the design and production teams who further a long tradition of excellence in book design. Approximately 281 books, 286 jacket and cover design entries, and 8 journals were entered. 56 books, 1 journal, and 40 jackets/covers were chosen by the jurors as the very best examples from this pool of excellent design.
These selected entries will be displayed at the premiere of the 2010 Book, Jacket, & Journal Show during the AAUP Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, June 17-20, 2010.
View the 2010 Selected Entries:
http://www.aaupnet.org/programs/marketing/designshow/winners2010.html
Suzanne Guiod
Editorial Director, University of Rochester Press
At the opening banquet of the 2008 AAUP Annual Meeting in Montréal, Peter Givler announced what came as very welcome and long anticipated news to this editor: that the University of Rochester Press had become an introductory member of AAUP. This recently established membership category for not-for-profit scholarly presses that have yet to meet full membership requirements created an opportunity for our small press to gain access to an organization of our peer presses and the professional benefits offered by that organization.
Although this year’s annual meeting in Philadelphia was not my first, it was with some pride that I attended for the first time as a representative of a member press. The University of Rochester Press’s location in western New York State, small size, and relative youth have meant some insulation from academic publishing centers in the US, and from a ready source of advice, stimulation, collegiality, and the comfort of nearby editorial colleagues who daily confront and navigate the complexities of our particular brand of publishing and service to the academy. At times it has also meant less exposure to industry news, to marketing and development opportunities, and to the economies of scale provided by a concentration of like entities represented in a unified professional organization.
In just over a year, membership has meant a good deal to the University of Rochester Press. We have already been able to participate in web seminars on pressing topics like open access, the Google settlement, and improving editorial workflow with XML. We have benefited from exposure to sales survey results, have been able to give informed responses to our provost during a time of economic uncertainty, and to gauge our position and performance in relation to presses of similar income and output. Not insignificantly, we have benefited from access to the AAUP job board, which has brought applicants to our attention from around the country with training and experience specifically targeted to our needs, rather than solely from a local and limited applicant pool. And we have had access to cooperative marketing opportunities we otherwise might never be able to afford.
Arguably, however, the most meaningful benefit of membership has been the difficult-to-quantify value it brings to our authors, many of whom require publication with a respected university press as a condition of tenure review and promotion. Just as university presses bring value to the publishing process through strict assessment and certification of scholarship, so endorsement by AAUP puts us in the company of established university presses large and small, innovative and venerable. Inclusion in AAUP also reinforces the work our series editors do year-round, and the commitment of time and expertise our faculty editorial board members regularly donate.
The University of Rochester Press was founded in 1989, and in September will celebrate its twentieth anniversary on campus and in cyberspace. With some 400 titles currently in print and active publishing programs in musicology, African studies, European history, and the history of medicine, we publish approximately 25 new books each year, and several paperback reprints. The origins of the Press were unique in that at its founding the University of Rochester contracted with a commercial academic publisher for production, sales, and distribution support, while editorial discretion has remained solely a function of the provost-appointed faculty editorial board. This arrangement allowed a private university to launch a press in the difficult late 80s (where some locate the genesis of the current crisis in scholarly communication), to grow, and even to prosper through two decades of economic turmoil. The arrangement has further kept the university from having to become a printer, or a warehouse, or a collections agency, but instead allowed it to remain focused on its fundamental missions.
Our future as a member press is by no means certain; in the current economic climate the prospect of adding new employees in order to meet the requirements of full membership is a daunting one, but the rewards vital: AAUP membership—and in particular the annual meeting—vitally augments and complements the support our editorial department receives from its dedicated faculty board and the university administration. It goes without saying that there is no substitute for the deep expertise and collective wisdom concentrated at this meeting each year, the exchange of ideas, and, inevitably, the commiseration—and all this aside from the Chronicle’s reliably decadent dessert reception. As it turns 20, reviews its accomplishments, and anticipates its future, the University of Rochester Press hopes and indeed expects to be a productive and reliable citizen of the AAUP for decades to come.
The Carol Franz Memorial Grants, Whiting Diversity Grants, and Whiting Newcomer Grants were awarded to staff at AAUP member presses to facilitate their attendance at the 2009 Annual Meeting. Upon returning to their home presses, the grant recipients prepared reports describing their experiences and what they took away from attending the meeting.
Read more about the grants.
On June 20, 2009, John Hopkins University Press Director Kathleen Keane assumed leadership of AAUP. Keane will serve a one-year term, and succeeds Alex Holzman, director of Temple University Press.
Keane began her career in university press publishing in 2002, when she joined the Johns Hopkins University Press as director of finance and operations. She was appointed director of the press in 2004, assuming oversight of an extensive publishing program which includes 200 books and 70 scholarly periodicals per year, in addition to the online collection Project MUSE and customer services operation and fulfillment for 16 client presses.
Keane has been a member of the AAUP Board of Directors since 2007, serving for the past year as president-elect, and was a member of the Task Force on Committees from 2008-2009.
Before moving to the world of university press publishing, Keane worked in commercial medical publishing, holding positions at Harcourt Health Services and J.B. Lippincott & Company. Keane earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Connecticut College and a master’s degree in English from Catholic University of America. She received her M.B.A. from the Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.
In her inaugural address at the AAUP Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Keane discussed the various challenges facing university presses today, and some of the innovative ways in which presses have approached them:
The 2009 AAUP Constituency Award was presented to Tony Crouch, Design and Production Director at the University of California Press, on June 18, 2009, at the AAUP Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The award was established in 1991 to honor staff at member presses who have demonstrated active leadership and service to the association and the university press community.
In introducing the honoree, Martha Farlow, production manager at the University of Virginia Press, described him as “one of the most knowledgeable, generous, and green individuals in our community.” Crouch’s nomination was supported by many in the AAUP community who have benefited from the wisdom and insight he has shared over the years. The nomination letters all noted his generosity in sharing his time and experience with all levels of staff.
Crouch has served in his current role at the University of California Press for 21 years, and announced in his acceptance of the award that he would be retiring at the end of June. He received his initial training for the world of print and publishing in the UK before emigrating to Canada. He was the design and production manager at McGill-Queen’s University Press for seven years before assuming the role of Director of Publishing for the Province of Nova Scotia.
While at California, Crouch became involved with BookBuilders West, eventually serving as director, and receiving their Distinguished Service Award in 2002. In 2005, he was inducted into the PrintMedia Hall of Fame, marking the first time a member of the university press community had been selected for the honor.
Crouch’s commitment to sustainable publishing has been notable over the years. Calling him the university press community’s “Green Superhero,” Farlow recalled how he began investigating chlorine-free and recyclable papers in the early 1990s, and helped establish a corporate sustainability program at California in 1995. In 2009, California received the Sustain Print Award for Longtime Leadership presented by Book Business magazine.
Over the years, Crouch has served AAUP in a variety of capacities. He served on the Program Committee in 2003-2004 and 2007-2008, on the Eco Task Force from its inception in 2004 through 2007, then the Eco Subcommittee of the Design and Production Committee from 2007-2009, served as a Whiting Week-in-Residence host, and spoken on many panels at various AAUP meetings. In the wider publishing community, he has managed a book show for the Publishers Association of the West, and taught courses at the Stanford Publishing Institute. Crouch has been a valued member of the scholarly publishing community throughout his years of service, and the impact of his contributions will continue to be felt long after his retirement.
Earlier this summer, AAUP was very pleased to announce a new membership benefit under an agreement with iPublishCentral, a self-service e-content platform from Impelsys. Member presses have a long commitment to serving the needs of scholars across every field of study. As scholars move to online practices as heterogeneous as their disciplines, AAUP is pursuing new benefit programs that will ease the process of experimenting with and adopting the right e-publishing solutions for scholarly presses.
The iPublishCentral services range from book-marketing widgets to direct e-book sales to consumers. These flexible service menus offer a broad range of ways for content to be discovered by and delivered to readers. The new AAUP-Impelsys program provides discounted monthly iPublishCentral fees to our members. In addition to the negotiated discount scale, Impelsys is offering AAUP members a special inaugural deal: waived fees for the first 12 months of contracts signed by June 2010.
The MIT Press, a cutting-edge adopter of several electronic publishing solutions, chose iPublishCentral to power their direct-to-consumer e-books store. E-books at the MIT Press currently offers approximately 450 titles from all of the Press’s publication fields and categories (trade, monographs, illustrated, and text.) Gita Manaktala, MIT’s Editorial Director, reports that they have seen a broad range of interest across all of these fields and categories.
MIT uses iPublishPortal to sell both perpetual access and time-limited e-books—a “rental” model the Press has just recently rolled out. MIT launched the e-books store in March 2009 with an intended audience of individual consumers. The biggest surprise, Manaktala says, has been the interest from libraries in purchasing single-title e-books through the site. Increasing reliance on patron requests to drive e-book acquisitions could be a factor in this library market, where turning to the press directly may be faster and easier than sourcing the title through aggregators.
MIT Press continues to work on the site’s features, layouts, and e-book offerings, and has yet to undertake a major marketing push for their e-book store. Throughout the process of building and tinkering with the new site, Manaktala says Impelsys has been “really responsive and good to work with. Their team is sophisticated and helpful, and interested in making this a success.”
In July and August, Impelsys hosted four webinars to introduce their services and the new AAUP benefit program to member publishers. More than 20 AAUP members attended these online sessions and have been favorably impressed with what they have seen. The iPublishWidget capability allows for branded, dynamic marketing across web sites, social networks, and blogs. iPublishView-Inside, with fully-searchable text and publisher controls on browsing, is an additional tool for providing what numerous e-publishing experiments have shown in recent years: online content that breeds both interest and sales. Sameer Shariff, CEO of Impelsys. believes that this is a particularly important tool for scholarly publishers to reach readers across the globe: “Increasingly discriminating readers will access sample pages and make quick, convenient purchases from anywhere in the world, further strengthening the financial position of university presses.”
Web demos can be arranged for any AAUP member that is curious about these services. Impelsys will also be attending the Frankfurt Book fair, where interested presses can arrange a direct meeting. Use the online registration form or contact Ray Alba to set up a Frankfurt meeting or with other questions about Impelsys services. AAUP members can learn more about the AAUP-Impelsys program and pricing scale through the members web site [password required]. Impelsys also offers an online “Learning Center” for press staff to delve deeper into the functionality available.
To talk about AAUP’s current e-publishing programs with Impelsys and Tizra, or suggest new program ideas, members are invited to contact Brenna McLaughlin at bmclaughlin@aaupnet.org.
The 2009-2010 AAUP committees and their respective chairs have been announced and may be viewed on the AAUP website. Two new task forces have been formed for the upcoming year to address various issues within the association. They include: the Task Force on Changing the AAUP By-Laws and the Task Force on the AAUP Crisis Management Toolkit.
View the charges for the various committees and task forces in the members-only section of the website (password required).
The 2009 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show will begin traveling to member presses for exhibition this month. The show debuted at the 2009 AAUP Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, June 18-21. Between September and May, the selected entries will travel throughout the United States and Canada as they are exhibited at 34 presses, visually teaching the tenets of good design.
The schedule for the traveling exhibit is now available online. The schedule is available for viewing either by state or province, or by month.
In May, AAUP welcomed RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press as an Introductory Member. The press is the scholarly publishing enterprise of the Rochester Institute of Technology and is affiliated with the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection. In addition to the graphic arts, the press also publishes in deaf studies, business, engineering, and science.
The AAUP Partners Program allows key service providers and related organizations to give annual support to AAUP and be formally recognized by AAUP for that support. AAUP is pleased to announce its nine partners in 2009:
Books International
BookMasters, Inc.
BookMobile
Cushing-Malloy, Inc.
codeMantra
ebrary
Maple-Vail
Marquis
Thomson-Shore
AAUP Partners Program
Brenna McLaughlin
Electronic & Strategic Initiatives Director, AAUP
In these economically troubled times, people are hungry for information and knowledge. The news media is essential for the first of those—details on the latest wrangling over the U.S. economic stimulus plan, the latest employment numbers, and a global view of the world-wide effects of the economic crisis. University presses, however, are key to the second: knowledge. For economists’ comprehensive understanding of the roots of the crisis, for historical analysis of how New Deal policies worked to end the Great Depression, and for detailed study of the effects of infrastructure projects on recovery and development, the public can turn to books published by members of the AAUP.
Despite this value of university press output to communities both local and global, we are no more protected from the economic downturn than other sectors of the U.S. economy and culture. The pain has been widely shared. A new survey from AAUP indicates that sales, in both units and dollars, are down 10% across the association.
The survey compared the figures for the six-month period of July to December 2008 to those of the same period in 2007 from sixty-two participating presses. Designed to quickly solicit a general picture of the business climate, the data is a useful tool as individual presses face difficult budget decisions. The association is now looking at rolling together the particular data collected here with the quarterly sales and returns survey that has been conducted since 2003.
That difficult budgetary times are ahead, and in many cases already with us, is unquestionable. Widespread reports of slashed travel budgets forced the cancellation of the 2009 financial managers and production managers meetings. Staff lay-offs at SUNY Press and the U.S. offices of Oxford University Press were an even more sobering sign of the strain felt by university presses from market realities and looming state budget cuts. These last affect not only the presses at public universities, but also the state-affiliated college and research libraries that remain key purchasers of scholarly material.
Perhaps the most shocking news has been the possibility that drastic cuts to the higher education budget of Utah might lead to the shuttering of the press at Utah State University. While a small press on an industry-wide scale, with 5 employees and an output of approximately 20 books a year, within its fields of publication Utah State University Press is an institution of central importance. Numerous award-winning books in rhetoric and composition, folklore, Mormon studies, and Utah history have garnered lasting national and international respect for both the press and Utah State. Despite this reputation, the press has been warned that if the worst case scenario of a 19% cut in state funds comes to pass, the press is on a list of non-essential units that may be eliminated.
The press director, Michael Spooner, has told the Chronicle of Higher Education that he understands the financial pressures that the administration is facing, but that the press is “operationally sound, financially stable, and over-achieving its given mission.” As was pointed out by Peter Givler, executive director of AAUP, while the move may save the university 3.5 salaries in the short run, in the long term they may never be able to afford to rebuild a press of such value or buy back the prestige that will be lost. University presses are not alone in being targeted as non-essential despite serving a core scholarly function. Recent news of the proposed closure of the Brandeis University Rose Art Museum (and sale of its esteemed collection of contemporary art) and the University of Pennsylvania’s move to shut down the research arm of their Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology are equally disturbing signs of the devaluation of a university’s work outside of teaching departments.
Despite these warning signs of potential university press casualties during the coming economic distress, the important work of AAUP members goes on. There are even things to celebrate: Mrs. Ramsay’s Knee, a work of poetry by Iris Anderson published by the Utah State University Press caught the national attention on Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” on January 10; SUNY Press announced the publication of Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady in time for the inauguration of Barack Obama. Looking to history provides some promise as well. After all, as the late L.E. Phillabaum and Sheldon Meyer wrote in “What is a University Press?,” the Great Depression saw one of the greatest booms in university publishing.
As the members of AAUP face the fear of a second such depression, the association and its community of colleagues will work together to manage continued technological and economic change creatively and successfully. In addition to the data provided by such efforts as the six-month sales survey, the AAUP Board recently requested the revision and distribution of “Tips for Hard Times” originally put together in 2001. AAUP will continue to develop collaborative services for members, and act as an advocate for members’ work to the wider world. And when the AAUP Annual Meeting gathers in Salt Lake City in June 2010, we very much hope to be returning to a two-press state.
Password information for members-only links.
Jack G. Goellner
Director Emeritus, The Johns Hopkins University Press
Undoubtedly not many of the people working today in the university press community knew and can remember Carol Franz. Probably few even recognize her name. Yet for two decades Carol was the beating heart of the AAUP’s Central Office. She helped plan and made arrangements for the AAUP’s annual meetings, committee meetings, and special conferences. Her acquaintance among university press staffs was wide and deep, and her dedication to scholarly publishing was legendary among the presses.
But that was quite awhile back. From the late 1950s until she retired in 1979, Carol served as Assistant Director of the AAUP, providing continuity in the association as executive directors came and departed. She was revered as a mentor, especially by newcomers just starting their careers in the university press world. Carol died at the age of 94 in August 2008.
Now a small group of “old hands” who remember Carol with gratitude and affection have undertaken to establish a memorial fund to honor her. The sole purpose of this fund will be to provide newcomers to university press staffs with financial help that enables them to attend annual meetings of the AAUP. Her abiding concern for young people led Carol to recognize how they benefited from participating in the national get-togethers, building acquaintances, and learning the craft from those who had mastered it.
The Carol Franz Memorial Fund will make grants of up to $1,500 to successful applicants who have worked on university press staffs for less than three years. Such grants are intended to cover travel expenses and registration fees for AAUP annual meetings. The availability of this funding will be announced by the Central Office. The selection of grantees will be made by a subcommittee of AAUP’s Board of Directors.
Those of us who knew Carol well remember her as a small woman, seemingly fragile but in fact energetic–and sometimes delightfully wacky. At one annual meeting, the newly elected president was preceded up the aisle to his inaugural address by a parade of kazoo players that Carol had mustered. On another occasion, she hosted a meeting of the AAUP’s Education and Training Committee to celebrate its origination of the Exchange. This meeting was at the New York Advertising Club–on “Guest Speaker Day,” as it turned out–and the speaker’s earnest presentation of a client’s newly coined advertising slogan (“It takes a licking and keeps on ticking,”) aroused so much merriment at the AAUP table that those seated at it were about to be thrown out. Later the committee chair commented, “With Carol at committee meetings we have a lot of fun, but we get a lot done.”
During World War II Carol was assigned to an ambulance unit of the American Red Cross and a field hospital. She was sent to France during the Battle of the Bulge to work with POWs. I was reminded of this during a Southern Presses meeting in New Orleans. Walking along Bourbon Street one evening she and I suddenly found ourselves in a violent rumble that filled the street from curb to curb. Fists, clubs, chains, studded belts, and finally a knife thrust into a belly all drew blood. I feared for the sweet little lady with me and tried to shepherd her out of the violence. She didn’t want to leave the scene. “Some of those boys are going to get badly hurt,” she said, “and they’re going to need help.” There spoke the Red Cross ambulance worker.
Carol wrote poetry and was an accomplished violinist, playing with several chamber groups. She was born and bred in Brooklyn, educated at Barnard and NYU–and longed to live in Maine. She did that, too, when she retired, first in Damariscotta, later in Portland; and then, in flagging health, she finally moved to Connecticut, where she lived with her sisters. Although Carol had transplanted herself to New England, she never left her Brooklyn accent behind. She wouldn’t have been Carol without it.
Carol told me several times in letters and during visits to her home in Portland that her years with the university presses were the best in her long life. “It was the people,” she
said. “I always loved the people. They were the best in the world.”
She would surely be delighted to be remembered in a way meant to help young men and women become university press people.
We hope that all who share fond memories of Carol and would like to
join in this memorial endeavor will contribute generously to the fund. Contributions
are tax-deductible: AAUP is a 501(c)(3) organization.
Checks should be made out to the AAUP, with “Carol Franz
Association of
Presses
71 West 23rd Street
Suite 901
New York
York
Attn:
Peter Givler, Executive Director
Organized by:
Jack Goellner, Nancy Essig, Joyce Kachergis, Janet Hose
Brenna McLaughlin
Electronic & Strategic Initiatives Director, AAUP
At the direction of the AAUP Board and President, a Task Force on Committees was formed in June of 2008. Under the chairmanship of Richard Brown (Director, Georgetown University Press), the task force is charged with recommending improvements to the AAUP committee structure. As an essential step in developing these recommendations, the group has sought out the opinions of the membership—through interviews with current and past committee chairs and through a broader survey of the membership in October 2008.
The Survey invitation was announced in the October 2008 bulletin; distributed via our fifteen active email discussion lists; and a request was also made to press directors that the invitation be distributed to their entire staff. While we hope that these distribution channels reached a majority of AAUP member staff, we cannot be sure of the exact number of recipients. Three hundred and twenty three responses were collected from those invitations. Using the number of staff listed in the AAUP central office database as our best measuring stick, this represents approximately 7.5% of possible recipients.
The survey was not intended to provide statistically precise data, but rather to provide the task force with a broad picture of the membership’s view of AAUP committees and to solicit new ideas for committee goals and procedures. The survey results greatly illuminated the priorities of the AAUP membership. The task force would like to share some of what we learned from the survey and the directions in which it has guided our conversation.
One interesting, if at first glance disappointing, response, was that more than 90 survey takers answered only the first question: “Have you ever served on an AAUP committee or task force?” While some of these incomplete responses may have been false starts—when someone came back to complete the survey later, almost every one of the early exits answered “No.” These members may have felt they did not know enough about, or weren’t invested enough in, the work of the AAUP committees.
Of those respondents who completed the survey, 51% identified themselves as upper management, 60% of whom have served on AAUP committees. Middle management represented 43% of respondents, and only 30% had ever served on a committee—a seemingly low number. Six percent (or 13 respondents) identified as entry-level staff, and only one of these had ever served on a committee or task force. There are several plausible explanations for this, viz., the longer one works in the AAUP community, the more opportunity one has to serve, let alone the more value one may see in the association.
However, these two results, in tandem with the large number of “Don’t Know” responses about the current work and effectiveness of committees, led the task force to an important realization. How to inform and involve a greater number and diversity of member staff in the work of the association will be one of the goals of the task force recommendations. One of the survey comments stressed this as well: the need for “more active outreach to press staff” on AAUP programs and committee progress.
Several committees have been a particular focus of the task force, including the Scholarly Journals Committee and the Electronic Committee. The divide between book and journal publishing in AAUP—increasingly counterproductive in a digital publishing environment—was underlined by the fact that only 5 self-identified journals staff took the survey, and 82% of survey-takers answered “Don’t Know” to the statement: “The Scholarly Journals Committee adequately addresses the most significant issues in journals publishing.” On the issue of the electronic committee, the survey confirmed what we had heard from recent committee chairs: there is an essential role in AAUP’s future for a group with IT and e-publishing expertise, but it must be more clearly defined.
The survey finally sought to discover AAUP members’ top priorities, and the task force has taken note. The three most important issues—for all staff levels whether or not a respondent had served on an AAUP committee—are digital rights and digital delivery of content; press relations with governing institutions; and open access initiatives and new revenue models.
We thank all those who took the time to complete the AAUP Committee Survey, and look forward to presenting our recommendation to the Board in Spring 2009.
Task Force Members:
Richard Brown, Georgetown, Chair
Alan Harvey, Stanford
Alex Holzman, Temple
Kathleen Keane, Johns Hopkins
Brenna McLaughlin, AAUP
David Nicholls, MLA
Frank Smith, Cambridge
List of Survey Questions (PDF, members-only)
Password Information
Meredith Benjamin
Communications Coordinator, AAUP
The Modern Language Association’s 124th Annual Convention was held December 27-30 in San Francisco, CA. The Convention is billed as the largest gathering of teachers and scholars in the humanities and attracted 8,544 registrants this year.
The 2008 MLA Exhibit was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton San Francisco, and included displays from approximately 100 publishers and other vendors exhibiting a wide variety of scholarly publications and tools.
The AAUP Cooperative Booth featured submissions from 17 member presses, with approximately 120 books on display. Traffic in the exhibit hall was bustling; despite the state of the economy, many visitors to the exhibit were carrying piles of books under their arms or in that conference staple, the logo-emblazoned tote bag.
Professors and scholars were eager to peruse the wide selection of scholarly books and journals on display, many describing the exhibit hall as a welcome break from the often-stressful conference sessions and job interviews that comprise the rest of the convention.
Many university press authors stopped by the booth to introduce themselves and check out their books in the display. One author even brought his family along for a photo opportunity. Seeing her dad’s book on the display rack, his young daughter remarked, “Dad, you’re famous!”
AAUP member presses had a strong presence at the exhibit, with 38 AAUP member presses exhibiting in their own booth spaces, in addition to those sharing the AAUP Cooperative Booth.
The 2009 MLA Convention is scheduled for December 27-30 in Philadelphia, PA. For more information on the convention, please visit MLA’s web site.
Brenna McLaughlin
Electronic & Strategic Initiatives Director, AAUP
On June 26, a mid-sized conference room in Montreal was home to a standing room only crowd. At least one too many invitations (perhaps my own!) had been cadged to a private presentation and discussion of a new e-publishing service. Tizra Publisher is a new publisher-branded online sales and distribution platform for electronic books and other document-based content. Perhaps that doesn’t sound terribly unique these days, but the Tizra software makes it very simple for non-technical staff to create online content collections, to set pricing, and to control the look and feel of the site itself. A Tizra-hosted publisher site needs only searchable, bookmarked PDFs, which many publishers create now as a part of the regular production process, to produce a secure and smooth reader experience. The interest in what Tizra demonstrated was palpable.
Of course, resources are always at stake when trying out a new e-publishing platform or sales model—not just money, but time and staff resources. University presses and their fellow not-for-profit scholarly publishers in the AAUP membership are particularly sensitive to return on investment (or, at least, return OF investment) in these days of experiment and hope. One of the most appealing aspects of Tizra’s pitch has been their own sensitivity to these concerns.
Since June, the company has worked in various ways to minimize the risks to such publishers in using Tizra Publisher. Their tiered pricing structure focuses on providing a pricing plan that fits the needs of presses from small to large. Even better, AAUP has been able to negotiate a 20% discount off of the monthly fees for our members. (Tizra’s terms entail a basic monthly service fee, as well as a modest transaction fee on sales through their hosted sites.) The Association will receive a percentage of the transaction fees earned by Tizra through sites signed-up through this AAUP discount program.
In addition to the direct financial benefit of the AAUP discount, the Tizra administrative control panel is both self-service and fairly intuitive, in hopes of decreasing the amount of time needed for learning and managing the site’s functions. Importantly, the site doesn’t require IT set-up or file conversion. One of the most interesting aspects of the product, however, is the flexibility of the sales model. Publishers can sell access to discrete book titles, individual chapters, or whole collections of content. Pricing can be set for individuals, institutions, or specific customer groups. And if a price point or collection offer isn’t succeeding, a publisher can try out a new one in a matter of minutes.
The system works by breaking each PDF up into individual pages that will be embedded in the HTML web page though which users access content. This increases security of content online, and decreases the download lag of high-quality PDF material, while appearing seamless to the end user. Searchable PDFs are indexed for both the internal Tizra search-engine and for sites such as Google. More than half of current traffic to Tizra-hosted content comes from Google searches, so findability is key. Currently Tizra’s product supports the sale of online access to content, with the ability to include links back to the press site to purchase print books, or to integrate with a publisher’s own shopping cart to sell print-and-online packages. Making the sales of downloadable PDFs possible is part of the company’s near-term plans, and they have discussed the possibility of partnering with a POD vendor to make that an option for publisher clients as well.
The MIT Press was already working with Tizra at the time of the June meeting. Their Tizra-hosted site, CISnet, was officially launched in early September. MIT chose to make available a specific collection, their computer and information sciences titles. Access to the complete collection can be purchased for a 5-day trial, a one-month or a one-year subscription. The site now includes more than 150 books, with more being added. The press cited the minimized upfront costs and delays as the largest benefit of working with Tizra. Throughout October, AAUP and Tizra have held weekly webinars to introduce a wider range of AAUP member presses to the capabilities of Tizra Publisher. As of the last week in October, the company began offering free online sign-up for publishers wishing to try out Tizra Publisher. While the free sites include Google Ads and have limited content allowances and branding and design tools, they are an excellent opportunity for risk-free experimenting and training. Throughout November, the webinar schedule will be split to accommodate the publishers who have begun to use the free sites and who have hands-on questions, and those who did not attend the initial October webinar introduction.
AAUP members who are interested in more information about Tizra Publisher, AAUP pricing, or the webinars should contact Brenna McLaughlin.
By Julia Fauci, Design/Production Manager, Northern Illinois University Press
On June 11 I represented the AAUP at the first meeting of the the Book Industry Environmental Council (BIEC) held at the corporate headquarters of Random House in New York City. Brenna McLaughlin from AAUP also attended. This group was formed at the urging of Tyson Miller of Green Press Initiative, though it is not under his direction. In attendance were a complimentary mix of publishers, paper manufacturers, book printers, and booksellers. Half of the group met around a large conference table, while half attended via phone hook up.
Prior to arriving in New York I queried my fellow AAUP book designers and production managers about what kind of eco-book, forest-friendly logo would work for them when designing and producing university press books. I reproduced this on-line discussion in pdf form and handed it out to my fellow BIEC members. Almost all AAUP designers wanted a line-art logo that did not interfere in the design of the dust jacket but still graphically conveyed a message of environmental certification.
At the BIEC meeting a lively discussion about the book industry’s ecological footprint dominated a large part of the session, with some paper manufacturers maintaining that the books themselves qualified as “carbon sequestration” and should be calculated as offsets to the burning of fossil fuels during paper manufacture. Also discussed were the requirements of a universal BIEC logo and what such a logo’s function and appearance should be. Concerns were raised about “logo bloat” and “greenwashing” where logos cease to advance meaning or educate consumers. The largest number of attendees signed up to be on the Logo Subcommittee, myself included.
The first phone meeting of the logo subcommittee was on July 31st. I was regretfully out of the office and could not attend, but here are the highpoints gleaned from the minutes:
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Publisher vs Product Certification:
Through consensus it was decided to certify publishers rather than books, making it much easier to verify compliance. A publisher could be audited once a year, rather than verifying thousands of titles. This would allow a publisher to make last minute changes without having to change certification on the title page and jacket.
Scorecard Approach to Certification:
The scorecard approach provides publishers with a ladder of environmental goals to achieve while getting credit for what they are already doing for the environment, giving them credit for the small steps they may have taken. A scorecard approach would involve people from all levels of a company and it could increase and formalize communication between publishers and suppliers.
Proposed changes to Scorecard:
Awarding points for calculating carbon footprint may alienate small publishers that do not have resources to conduct the necessary analysis. Instead, points should be awarded for accomplishments that would have the effect of reducing a company’s carbon footprint such as installing efficient lighting, reducing travel, etc. Relative weighting of transportation should be increased.
Inks would be difficult for publishers to track, as printers may change brand of inks frequently. This info would be especially difficult to track for those printing offshore.
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If anyone from the AAUP has a query regarding the Book Industry Environmental Council, please contact Julia Fauci, Design/Production Manager, Northern Illinois University Press, 2280 Bethany Road, DeKalb, IL 60115
by Brenna McLaughlin
In 2006, the planners of the electronic publishing workshop decided to create an AAUPWiki to house the knowledge that would be shared and created at the event. The moderators edited the wiki on the fly, demonstrating the power of the tool to attendees as session notes became wiki articles.
After the workshop and the 2006 Annual Meeting were completed, additional meeting session notes and presentations became the backbone of what is intended to be a long-standing and dynamic resource for all AAUP members. As the AAUPWiki founders wrote on its main page, “The goal of this wiki is to be a living encyclopedia of best practices in scholarly publishing.”
Since its launch, the conference knowledge of two more annual meetings has been added to the AAUPWiki. In addition to the contributions of the wiki’s original developers and meeting attendees, the AAUP Business Handbook editors recently decided to post the Handbook articles on the wiki site, and the Marketing Committee is now considering posting the Marketing Handbook.
The AAUP community has a rich tradition of sharing advice, experience, and ideas. Not-for-profit publishing is for the most part a collaborative and supportive, rather than competitive, endeavor. The wiki platform allows for community editing and content creation, and it is the association’s hope that members and committees will continue to take advantage of this great tool.
I encourage you to go explore, learn from, and add to the resources now available at http://aaupwiki.princeton.edu. While the AAUPWiki is publicly accessible to search and read, AAUP members must register at the site in order to edit content. (This is a light layer of security to balance both access for the AAUP community with protection from spammers.) If you presented at a session at the Montreal meeting and would like to post PDFs or slide presentations for the wiki, please contact me at bmclaughlin@aaupnet.org to have that posted and linked. Thanks must go to Chuck Creesy and Princeton University Press for hosting and administering the AAUPWiki.
AAUPWiki: http://aaupwiki.princeton.edu
2008 Annual Meeting Knowledge: http://aaupwiki.princeton.edu/index.php/AAUP_2008_Annual_Meeting