Library and University Press Publishing: Then and Now
Librar y and University Press Publishing : The n and Now
Bob Nardini
Ingram Library Services
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Article 7
ALA MIDWINTER ISSUE
v OLUME 26, NUMBER 6
DECEMBER 2014 - JANUARY 2015
TM
“Linking Publishers, Vendors and Librarians”
Library Publishing and University Press Publishing:
Then and Now
by Bob Nardini (Vice President, Product Development, Ingram Library Services) <>
George Wilton Jacks (grandson
of Bruce and Katina Strauch) was
born on Monday, November 10 at
9:42 pm. He weighed 7 lbs, 2 oz. He
and his mother Ileana and dad Sam
are doing very well in Jacksonville,
FL. Isn’t he just adorable? A precious
bundle of joy for all.
“Everything changed in the fall of 2008,”
writes John Hussey to open the first of nine
articles in this issue of Against the Grain
devoted to the intersection of publishing by
academic libraries and by university presses.
John, now my Ingram colleague but
who was then at the University Press
of Kentucky, relates how the
economic crash made a ruin
of Kentucky’s plans for the
publishing season. At the same
time, the crisis forced the Press
to analyze “every facet of the
business” to survive in a harsher
financial climate. One thing that
eventually changed at Kentucky was that the
Press and the library were merged
organizationally and these two campus units
who until then had had little to do with one
another “were now sharing office spaces,” as
John puts it in “Academic Publishing is Not in Crisis — It’s Just Changing.”
That was the same year, 2008, when
Against the Grain commissioned an earlier
special issue on this same topic
(December 2008-January 2009).
Patrick Alexander, then and
now at the Penn State
University Press, is a special issue
contributor then and now as
well. “Then,” Patrick
described the assets university
presses might bring to a joint
enterprise between
organizations so culturally different.
He confessed to having “no
secret recipe” for success in
these unions, which were in
If Rumors Were Horses
Hto begin?
appy 2015! Lots of news to report so far! Where
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers’ founder
Robert Franklin announced that he has passed the
job and title of President to the awesomely deserving
Rhonda Herman. Franklin will assume the new title
of Founder and Editor-in-Chief. Founded in 1979,
McFarland is an independent publisher of academic and
nonfiction books. I remember reading about Franklin
in the Wall Street Journal many years ago — it’s a
great article. “Publishing: Niche Publisher Prospers
— Without Grishams or Kings,” by Eleena de Lisser,
Wall Street Journal, eastern edition, 12 March 1998, B1.
Located in the beautiful mountain town of Jefferson,
North Carolina, the publisher offers 5,100 books in
print, offers nearly 3,000 eBooks through online
booksellers, operates its own printing facility, and employs
55 people. Rhonda Herman joined the company in
1982 as Business Manager. She was promoted to Vice
President in 1991 and to Executive Vice President in
2004. While she has worked at various times in her
McFarland career in every corner of the operations,
the early stages of taking shape at places like
the University of California, New York
University, Cornell, Duke, and North Carolina.
Six years later, Patrick finds that best practices
“continue to be in relatively short supply” and
that cultural differences are as strong as ever.
But he suggests that libraries and presses might
evolve to complement one another, invoking in
his suggestion the biologist E.O. Wilson. Read
about it and even watch an E.O. Wilson video
in, “The Ant, the University Press, and the
Librarian: Reflections on the Evolution of
Scholarly Communication.”
Maria Bonn once referred to those early
projects from 2008 as the “usual suspects,”
pioneers who often found themselves drafted
for panels as spokespersons for the young
continued on page 12
What To Look For In This Issue:
Opening Pandora’s (Cable) Box....... 63
Words of Warning.............................. 64
Frienemies: Vendor Tech Support.... 74
Grassroots Monographic Shared Print
in the Corn Belt ................................. 76
The Coming Bubble Bust.................. 79
Collection Management and Shared
Access in a Contemporary Consortial
Environment...................................... 80
Interviews
Audrey Powers................................... 41
Peter Shepherd .................................. 43
Stanley Wilder ................................... 49
Profiles Encouraged Audrey Powers................................... 42 Peter Shepherd .................................. 46
continued on page 6
Library Publishing ...
from page 1
movement. Maria was then director of the
University of Michigan’s Scholarly Publish
ing Office. She recalls that publisher audience
members ranged from “curious to skeptical
to downright antagonistic” toward aspiring
li (...truncated)