Duke University Press Log

Behind the Covers: The Making of a Journal at Duke University Press

Check out our newest video that follows the life-cycle of a journal--through production, editorial, marketing, and distribution:

 

Library E-Book Acquisitions Survey Results

In February 2011, Duke University Press administered an online Library E-Book Acquisitions Survey. Thank you to all the librarians who participated. The information that you generously shared will be invaluable to our work making Duke University Press e-books meet the needs and exceed the expectations of your library and your patrons. 

We are happy to share the report of our survey results here and hope that you will find them as interesting as we do. We welcome your comments and questions at libraryrelations@dukeupress.edu.

Photos from the annual Charleston Library Conference

 Kimberly Steinle, our Library Relations Manager; Beth Hoskins, our Library Relations Specialist; and Leslie Eager, our Institutional Exhibits and Direct Marketing coordinator; are in Charleston, SC, this week attending the annual Charleston Library Conference.  Though they're busy talking with librarians about our electronic collections and attending panels to learn about changes in the library community, they kindly took the time to send along some photos:


Kim and Leslie man the booth at the vendor showcase.

Kim and Beth catch up with October Ivins, Consultant, Ivins eContent Solutions.

 

Busy vendors and librarians at the vendor showcase.

Behind the Scenes at a Book Printer

A few weeks ago, our Books Design and Production department took a field trip to
one of our book printers, Edwards Brothers in Lillington, North Carolina. Designer Amy Ruth Buchanan was impressed: "During our tour of the plant, it was confirmed for me again that I am in the right business. I found all the paper, the huge printing presses, stacks of signatures waiting for binding, binding equipment, and 
rolls of foil for stamping spines totally thrilling. I really am a book-making geek. We were all especially impressed by the long tenures of the staff there. I think the "new guy" has been there for about seven years. The Director of Customer Service and Prepress has been with the company for 42 years." And Production Assistant Brittany Miller said she "enjoyed seeing the mechanics of printing. All too often we forget the physical labor and technical skills that are involved in the publishing process. We were able to see just how enthusiastic and learned our book-makers are!" Brittany was inspired to take some gorgeous photos of the workings of the factory. We share some here, and you can see the rest on our Facebook page.   

Global Open Access Week

Next week, October 18-24 is Open Access Week, "[A]n opportunity for the worldwide academic and research community to continue to learn about the potiential benefits of Open Access (OA), to share what they've learned with colleageus, and to inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research."

Duke University is participating in OA Week with a series of events focusing on how and why Duke scholars support and benefit from open access, and background information on the various aspects of OA.  One such event is a panel featuring two Duke Press employees: LIbrary Relations Manager Kim Steinle, and Project Euclid Manager Mira Waller.  The panelists will discuss their experiences with Open Access publisihing and its impact on scholarly communications.

Project Euclid, a joint venture with Cornell University Library, hosts a number of open access titles.  With the help of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Duke University Press currently offers over 10,000 letters written by Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle to the public. 

Duke Press at Book Expo America

Book Expo America, the U.S. publishing industry's largest trade show, begins today in New York City with panels and speeches. The exhibit hall opens tomorrow. Duke Press will be there promoting our Fall 2010 titles. We'll be giving away lots of copies of Amitava Kumar's new novel, Nobody Does the Right Thing, the story of two cousins whose lives intertwine in the busy, complex world of modern India. Other advance reading copies we'll have on hand include Kumar's nonfiction book A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb (recently given a starred review in Publishers Weekly); jazz great Randy Weston's autobiography, African Rhythms; performance artist Suzanne Lacy's Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007; a collection of plays by Black Arts Movement great Sonia Sanchez entitled "I'm Black When I'm Singing, I'm Blue When I Ain't" and Other Plays; Judith Armatta's definitive account of the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, Twilight of Impunity; an ethnography of human pharmaceutical test subjects called The Professional Guinea Pig by Roberto Abadie; and a fun look at women and global surfing culture, Surfer Girls in the New World Order by Krista Comer.

If you're attending BEA, please stop by our booth, #3727 and pick up some great books and a cool tote bag to put them in. If you won't be there, stay tuned to our Facebook page and Twitter feed for some giveaways this week!

Exciting Times for Readers and Publishers

Here at Duke Press we are midway through a five year planning process and have been spending this month breaking up into small groups that combine books and journals staff and talking about the future of publishing. That future looks both exhilarating and daunting. Over at the Huffington Post, Jason Pinter posits that we might be living through the most exciting time for book lovers. He wants to get beyond the doom and gloom of "print is dead," and instead celebrate the worldwide success of books by Stieg Larsson, the expansion of e-books, the ability of readers to connect online, and the popularity of movie adaptations of books. His optimism sounds a lot like that of Jim Collins, author of Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture, which we'll publish in June. Collins, a Professor of Film and TV at Notre Dame, describes how a once solitary and print-based experience has become an exuberantly social activity, enjoyed as much on the screen as on the page. Book reading, he claims, has not become obsolete; it has become integrated into popular visual media.

Photo by Brittany Miller.

Stanley Fish at Duke Press Annual Meeting

Check out the second video in our Inside Duke Press series!

The Annual Meeting for Duke University Press took place on Thursday, October 8th. Our speaker for this year's meeting was literary scholar, New York Times columnist, and former DUP director Stanley Fish. He spoke about his time spent in the English Department at Duke University and his time as the Duke University Press Director. This video contains a portion of his speech.

Letter to the FTC on Guides Governing Bloggers

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission issued its guidelines for celebrity endorsements, bloggers, and advertisements. The guidelines are designed to protect consumers by making it clear when an endorser has received a free product in exchange for an endorsement. But we, and many book review bloggers, believe these guidelines will have a chilling effect on the online book reviewing community. The threat of fines may just cause some bloggers to stop accepting books from publishers. For some astute commentary on the rules, check out Ron Hogan (who writes the literary blog Beatrice) over at GalleyCat. And read our letter after the jump, and consider writing your own if you feel strongly about this.

What does an acquisitions editor do?

Check out our new YouTube series Inside Duke Press! First up, Editorial Director Ken Wissoker talks about the job of an acquisitions editor. It's not all about the red pencil! Look for more conversations with people behind the scenes at the Press in the coming weeks.