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For decades digital technology has steadily transformed the business of academic publishing, but much of the digitization of the industry has, until more recently, gone on behind the scenes in the form of new printing technologies, databases, design and production tools, etc. Then in the mid-1990s the internet began to change how our customers find out about and purchase our books. And just as the textual media have been transformed by digitization, so the audiovisual media are being changed. Audio and video have become much easier to produce and distribute in the age of digital cameras, formats, and online distribution channels.

No surprise that as our readership encounters more and more visual media online, that is where we—and our university press comrades—want to be found. The higher education media are taking note of the trend.

Continue reading "Scholarly Publishing: Now on Video" »

Archived in Books for the News | Commentary | UCP News
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Forty-eight years ago last Friday, Theodore Maiman demonstrated the first laser at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California. We could have written a blog post about that. Turns out we didn't have to. Last Friday Google had a special logo to mark the anniversary. A click on the logo executed a web search for "first laser" and the first search result was a book excerpt we created five years ago for A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World.

The ensuing traffic was incredible. Our website had almost half a million visitors last Friday, more than 25 times the traffic of the previous Friday. The uptick in traffic actually began about 6pm CDT on Thursday, as the clock turned to Friday in the Far East, and continued into the first few hours of Saturday. A "Google day" appears to last about 44 hours.

Numbers like this are, of course, a testament to the worldwide reach and popularity of Google. They also testify to the boundless extent of human curiosity.

Archived in UCP News
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Along with nearly every other facet of life, in the last decade the digital revolution has transformed the book publishing industry. As North America's largest university press, Chicago has been one of the leaders in advancing the use of digital technology in publishing—a fact acknowledged in the cover story of this month's Book Business magazine. Touching on everything from our short-run digital printing program, to the digital publishing services offered by BiblioVault, our digital content repository, Book Business's James Sturdivant talks to UCP director Garrett Kiely and Chicago Digital Distribution Center manager Jeanne Weinkle to learn how Chicago has extended its digital publishing initiatives into the twenty-first century. James Sturdivant writes for Book Business:

Garrett Kiely [is] a 20-year industry veteran who came on as the UCP's 15th director in September 2007. Kiely arrived after an eight-year stint as president of Palgrave Macmillan, where he oversaw e-book conversion projects and other pioneering digital initiatives for a division focused on scholarly and reference titles.

Such experience is crucial to the press's innovative strategy for content distribution. The press offers print-on-demand and digital distribution to a range of academic publishers through its Chicago Distribution Services, positioning itself as the entity best able to serve the needs of noncommercial academic publishers.

"We provide a very good service," Kiely says. "Random House does the best trade distribution, and Chicago is the best university distributor. That's pretty good company to be in."

"For publishers [who work with us] here, I can tell you [that] right away they never have to manage that inventory again," [says Jeanne Weinkle, manager of the Chicago Digital Distribution Center]. "There's no worry about shipping. It's just a nice flow, a nice life cycle." In addition to the 180 new books and approximately 70 paperback reprints published yearly by the UCP, [Chicago Distribution Services] runs fulfillment services for more than 50 outside presses.

Weinkle refers to her clients as "a community of like-minded publishers who have similar financial challenges"—among them, the shifting market for academic materials as university libraries scale back on print purchases, and, in some cases, staff cutbacks that have made it difficult to develop digital distribution and marketing services in-house. … We definitely make a profit here, but that's not what it's about. It's about keeping the books alive," she says.

To learn more about the press's digital services and initiatives, or for those simply interested in how digital technology is affecting the world of academic publishing, read the rest of article on the Book Business website, and see the variety of services offered by the Chicago Distribution Center.

Archived in UCP News
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Columbia University Press, University of California Press, and the University of Chicago Press announce a new joint publishing effort in South Asian Studies.

The University Presses of California, Chicago, and Columbia are pleased to announce that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant to commence publication of a major book series covering South Asia. Titled “South Asia across the Disciplines” the new series aims to publish six monographs per year, in a collaborative effort across all three University Presses with each press publishing two series books per year.

Each press has long-established roots in the field and is based at a university with outstanding South Asia faculty. In recent years, the market for South Asian studies books has declined along with the broader market for academic monographs in many fields, making it increasingly difficult for emerging scholars to get their work published. “South Asia across the Disciplines” will disseminate and promote new scholarship on South Asia by combining the efforts and resources of the three presses.

Continue reading "A new joint publishing effort for South Asian studies" »

Archived in Press Releases | UCP News
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David P. Currie, a constitutional scholar and professor at the University of Chicago Law School for 45 years, died yesterday in Chicago at the age of 71. Currie was the author of 19 books, and the University of Chicago Press was pleased to be the publisher of eight of them, including his magnificent works in the history of the Constitution of the United States.

In the two volumes of The Constitution in the Supreme Court, The First Hundred Years and The Second Century, Currie delivered both legal analysis and a narrative history of the highest court's interpretation of the Constitution.

Currie turned to the legislative branch for his volumes of The Constitution in Congress. He analyzed the work of the first six Congresses in The Federalist Period and examined the period of Republican hegemony in The Jeffersonians. The antebellum years required two volumes: Democrats and Whigs, which covered the Jacksonian revolution and economic changes, and Descent into the Maelstrom, which was devoted to the great debate over slavery. Currie was working on the next volume in the series at the time of his death.

For the bicentennial of the Constitution, Currie wrote a book for the student and lay audiences, The Constitution of the United States: A Primer for the People, which we issued in a second edition in 2000. Currie was not only a scholar of the U.S. Constitution, but examined the foundational documents of other countries as well. We published one of his international studies, The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.

An obituary was released by the Law School and many comments from colleagues and students can be found on the Law School's Faculty Blog.

Archived in Law | UCP News
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Garrett P. Kiely has been named as the new Director of the University of Chicago Press. The news was released yesterday by the Office of the Provost.

Kiely is an academic publishing veteran and currently President of Palgrave Macmillan (formerly St. Martin's Press Scholarly & Reference Division). He will begin his duties as director at Chicago on September 1. At Palgrave, Kiely previously served as both Sales and Marketing Director, and as Vice President of the Scholarly and Reference Division.

Kiely succeeds Paula Barker Duffy, who led the Press since 2000. Chris Heiser, Deputy Director of the Press, will serve as Interim Director, beginning July 1.

Archived in UCP News
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Today's issue of the the Chicago Reader—the Spring Books Special—has a nice little feature about the writer of The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A. But if you're hoping that the identity of the Q&A writer will at long last be revealed to all the world … you’ll be disappointed to learn that the woman behind the wit of the Q&A has adopted a pseudonym, Jody Fisher.

Every month new entries are published to the The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A. Here’s one from this month’s lot:

Q. Is it really necessary to include “as” before “per”? For example, “Client has requested, as per original agreement, two hard copies of all reports.” Since “per” means “according to,” can’t we just delete the unnecessary (and wordy-looking) “as”? Thank you, great gurus, for your wisdom!

A. It is not necessary to add “as.” In fact, it used to be considered incorrect, and sticklers still feel superior when they slash through it.

Archived in Commentary | Reference and Writing | UCP News
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At its award ceremony on Monday, April 30, the University of Chicago Press awarded the 2006 Gordon J. Laing Prize to W. J. T. Mitchell, the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History, for his book What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images.

Awarded annually since 1963 by the Press, the Laing Prize is given to the Chicago faculty author, editor, or translator whose book has brought the greatest distinction to the Press's list.

In What Do Pictures Want? Mitchell explores the idea that images are not just inert objects that convey meaning but animated beings with desires, needs, appetites, demands, and drives of their own. The book highlights Mitchell's innovative and profoundly influential thinking on picture theory and the lives and loves of images. Ranging across the visual arts, literature, and mass media, Mitchell applies characteristically brilliant and wry analyses to Byzantine icons and cyberpunk films, racial stereotypes and public monuments, ancient idols and modern clones, offensive images and found objects, American photography and aboriginal painting.

Mitchell becomes only the third faculty member to win the Laing Prize twice; he also won the 1996 prize for Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation.

What Do Pictures Want? was also the co-winner of the 2006 James Russell Lowell Prize awarded by the Modern Language Association.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Awards | Literature | UCP News
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After months of anticipation the moment you've all been waiting for has arrived—the winners of the raffle hosted by The Chicago Manual of Style Online were announced today at approximately 3:00 pm Central Time in the boardroom of the University of Chicago Press. Not one but two lucky individuals were chosen at random from a pool of respondents to the recent CMOS Online survey. The winners receive up to one hundred dollars worth of free books from the Press, that's right, one hundred dollars worth of FREE BOOKS. Choosing the winning tickets was none other than Director of the Books Division of the Press, Mr. Bob Lynch. In his press release, Mr. Lynch stated that he was pleased to present the awards on behalf of the CMOS staff and thanked the lucky winners for their time spent helping to improve the CMOS Online user experience.

Congratulations!

Archived in Reference and Writing | UCP News
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One hundred years ago, in November 1906, this press published a small book with a long title: Manual of Style: Being a Compilation of the Typographical Rules in Force at the University of Chicago Press, to Which Are Appended Specimens of Types in Use. Over the years, it grew in length and in reputation, becoming a standard reference for compositors, copyeditors, and publishers. In the later decades of the twentieth century, the audience for the Manual grew to encompass individual writers and scholars.

In its 100th anniversary year, in its fifteenth edition, the Manual has become an online reference work. The online version of the Manual offers the fully searchable text of the fifteenth edition with added features including tools for editors, a quick citation guide, and searchable access to the popular Chicago Style Q&A.

In this still-emerging world of online publishing, the look and the role of online works are not well-established. We believe that we've created an online product that is useful for editors and publishers, effectively utilizes the technology of the online medium, and has a business model that's attractive to the consumer and sustainable for the publisher. We believe that we have created innovative and user-friendly functionality and created subscription options responsive to the needs of the Manual's users. We welcome your comments on how well we have achieved these goals.

The Chicago Manual of Style is the indispensable reference for all who work with words, and now in its new online form it has never been more accessible.Try it out.

Archived in Reference and Writing | UCP News
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As a University of Chicago professor and peer reviewer, David Bevington has helped launch the careers of countless scholars in the humanities. On the eve of his retirement, David and his wife Peggy are extending this commitment even further with a $100,000 gift to the University of Chicago Press to help publish works from emerging scholars.

David, the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of English, retired this year after teaching at the University for 38 years. He is a world renowned authority on English drama and literature from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and has edited numerous editions of Shakespeare's works. A warm and inspiring teacher, Bevington received the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate teaching in 1979.

Peggy also devoted her career to the University of Chicago community. An expert in early childhood education, she retired in 2003 after nearly three decades of teaching nursery school at the Laboratory Schools.

As longtime friends of the Press, the Bevingtons see their gift as an extension of their ongoing involvement with and enthusiasm for Chicago's academic publisher. David has been a driving force in building the Press's reputation as a scholarly leader in early modern studies. "The excellence of Chicago's list in Shakespeare studies over the past twenty years is due in no small measure to the important role played by David Bevington," said Paula Duffy, Director of the Press. "He has been the ideal reviewer for numerous manuscripts published by the Press—always thoughtful, critical, and deeply supportive when he recognizes strong scholarship and novel, significant ideas."

Read the press release.

Archived in Press Releases | UCP News
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To request a review copy:
Please fax your request on letterhead to 773-702-9756, Attn: Publicity Department.
Please be sure to include your name, street address, and postal code.

For all other inquiries:
Publicity Department
The University of Chicago Press
1427 East 60th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637 USA
telephone: (+US) 773.702.7740
fax: (+US) 773.702.9756
e-mail: publicity@press.uchicago.edu

Archived in UCP News
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