http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1470 Allerton Park Institute Proceedings (no. 14, 1967); Edited by Kathryn Luther Henderson http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1547 The American University Press Schossberger, Emily Fifteen years ago the conveners of a symposium on "Trends in American Publishing" would probably not have invited a representative of the then rather esoteric and little known field of the university presses. For until a few years after World War II and certainly for the two decades preceding it, the scholarly publishers on university campuses were hardly considered legitimate, far less as presenting an important segment of the publishing industry which had to be taken into account. With the exception of a few Ivy League schools, plus Columbia, Cornell and Johns Hopkins, and a little later of the universities of Chicago and California, the academic publisher was considered woefully amateurish. Thus the industry could well afford to ignore the scholarly presses, or to use them as places to which they could refer authors whose manuscripts, they knew, would not be profitable to publish. The label "a typical university press book" was used to characterize the often ponderously written, jargon-laden and treatise- like manuscript which might later find its published form in a drab, badly printed hardback of forbidding and voluminous proportions. For in those pre- sputnik days the campus publishers were mainly concerned with issuing research reports and monographs, primarily destined for the specialists and the libraries in their fields, and of interest exclusively to the academic community. Although many of these influenced the course of research, only very rarely was a book published which was destined actually to change attitudes or to bring such new insights that a whole discipline was born and not many presses were as lucky as Chicago at the end of the last century when it published John Dewey. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1546 Bookstores: A Main Distribution Agency For Books Epstein, Louis I am neither a librarian nor a publisher, and the topic originally assigned to me, "Main Distribution Agencies for Books," is so vast that I know of no single person qualified to deal with the whole of it. However, one sentence in the invitation to participate in this conference put some limit to my assignment and gave me hope of being able to fulfill it; although, the invitation said, "you are particularly interested in bookstores, ... we feel that your experience and point of view qualify you to discuss this topic for an audience of librarians. " Those are the terms I accepted and those are the terms on which I must be judged. I am not an authority on book clubs except where they hurt the bookseller. I am not an authority on wholesale booksellers except where they are inadequate. I am not an authority on discount houses and price-cutting booksellers except to the extent that they are vultures on the main body of bookselling. I am not an authority on college bookstores except where they take advantage of their tax-free, rent-free status to compete with me. I am not an authority on library jobbers, nor on technical or specialty book stores. I do know some things about retail bookselling. And I am interested in practically everything pertaining to the book. It is worth remembering that librarians and booksellers are both at the final end of the book distribution system. They are the only ones in the system who face the ultimate reader across a counter. They have problems in common. They each have to choose their stocks from the vast number of available titles, they each have the problem of adequately housing the publisher's product, and they each have to find ways and means of paying for their stocks, either from a budget or from a cash register. Both are directly affected by publishing trends. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1545 A Librarian Looks At American Publishing Castagna, Edwin How does, and how should, a librarian look at publishing in 1967? As a minor customer buying a small part of the output of a large industry? As a fellow member of the nation's communications apparatus ? As one of the last of the Mohicans upon whom the tribe of McLuhanites is about to count coup? Is the librarian like one of a boatload of frantic voyagers in immediate danger of drowning in a roaring river of print loosed by publishers? Or may librarians and publishers be thought of as linked in a symbiotic relationship like that of the Egyptian plover and the crocodile? The plover helps the crocodile as lookout and oral hygienist. In return he gets the delicious leeches he finds along the crocodile's gums. Both partners benefit. However one describes the publisher -librarian relationship it is obvious we each have important functions in the series of processes from the writing of a book to its publishing, and on to its selection, acquisition and presentation to the reader. We share in the crucial responsibilities of maintaining our country's information network. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1544 Current Trends In Educational Publishing: A Personal View Follett, Robert J. R. Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of our times is the rapid increase in the rate of change. In whatever field one cares to look, the pace of change is accelerating. This is certainly true of education. Because educational publishing serves education, the really important trends in educational publishing are the result of changes in education or in society's view of education. My thesis, stated briefly and straightforwardly, is that there are two major trends at work in American education. The first is a shift in society's view of education: once considered an expense, education is now seen as an -Investment. The second is a shift in the emphasis from teaching to learning. Education as investment. Education as learning. These two phrases embody the ideas I hope to clarify and embroider. It will quickly be seen that the most important trends in educational publishing are a consequence of these two trends in education. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1543 The Role Of Computers Melcher, Daniel Several years ago, in 1963 to be exact, I drafted an advertisement in which Bowker announced that any of its book information could be had in any form, including punched cards, punched paper tape, magnetic tape, or any other machinable form, including overthe- wire service. The advertisement was repeated once or twice. I think it will come as no surprise, however, that the only responses were received from branches of the IBM company. The offer was bona fide. We were already using punched cards and punched paper tape in various ways and were fully prepared to deliver whatever anyone might want at a nominal rate, just to lend a hand with any experiments. Four years have passed since that announcement and I must confess that the future is still where it always was, although various experiments have been tried. We were at one point supplying the data on Forthcoming Books to the Library of Congress for magnetic tape conversion. The idea was to help LC know when to expect books announced for publication but not yet received for cataloging, but any actual use of the data in this way by the Library of Congress is still in the future. In another experiment we started supplying inventory control data to forty college stores, covering Paperbound Books in Print. Some of the data went out as punched cards, some in other forms. It was and remains an "interesting experiment," if I may use the conventional euphemism for "unsuccessful experiment." Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1542 The Prospective New Copyright Law Goldman, Abe A. It is common for writers and speakers on copyright to begin by quoting the clause in the Federal Constitution on which our copyright law is founded. This has become a cliche because it has the merit of compressing some profound concepts in a few words. Congress shall have the power, the Constitution says, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." In paraphrase, to enable authors to devote their time and talent to the creation of works of literature, music, and the arts, the copyright law gives them property rights in their creations whereby they can reap economic rewards for their contributions to learning and culture. As Justice Reed put it in a leading decision of the Supreme Court: The economic philosophy behind the clause empowering Congress to grant patents and copyrights is the conviction that encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare through the talents of authors and inventors in "Science and useful Arts." Sacrificial days devoted to such creative activities deserve rewards commensurate with the service rendered. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1541 The Economics Of Publishing Frase, Robert W. Some fifteen years ago I gave a paper, "Economic Trends in Trade Book Publishing," under the auspices of the University of Illinois, as part of the 1952 Windsor Lectures. The over- all subject was Books and the Mass Market* and my two fellow lecturers were the late Harold Guinzburg, founder and president of the Viking Press, and Theodore Waller, now vice-president of Grolier, Inc. The significance of book publishing economics lies not in its impact on the over-all economic life of the nation but on its intellectual, political and artistic life. If I may be permitted the luxury of quoting myself, the following was the opening paragraph of my 1952 Windsor Lecture: The economics of book publishing, and more specifically "trade" or general book publishing is important primarily as it affects the kind of books which are produced and distributed. The industry is so small compared to most others that it has little or no influence on general economic developments. The direct economic value of the industry's products is an infinitesimal fraction of the total annual production of goods and services in this country. In terms of intellectual and artistic content, however, the annual production of general books would rank at the top of the scale. This discussion will deal, therefore, not with the economics per se of a small industry, but with the influence of economic factors on what books are published and how widely they can be distributed. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1540 Current Trends In American Publishing Madison, Charles Not a few people, in and out of publishing, have recently come to fear that book publishing has been turned into a crass business by Wall Street manipulators and electronics corporations. To a certain extent they are right, except that this business emphasis began a long time ago. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century leading publishers strove to give their activity the aura of professional prestige. Faced with piratical competition in the 1870' s and 1880' s, which made normal book publishing of uncopyrighted English importations a ruinous venture, the regular publishers Harper, Appleton, Putnam, Scribner, Lippincott, Holt, and Houghton persisted in maintaining their high critical and ethical standards. As late as 1898, for instance, Henry Holt wrote to Arthur Waugh, his English agent: I don't think I've made you understand yet that I didn't publish anything that I didn't think is good, no matter how well it is expected to sell. My dear old friend George Bentley urged and urged me to publish Marie Corelli, telling me that I would make lots of money out of it. It was probable that I would, but I absolutely and reiteratedly refused. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1539 Major Trends In American Book Publishing Lacy, Dan Two principal forces have produced the rather dramatic changes in the character of American book publishing that have taken place in the last fifteen years. One has been the very large increase in the number of children born annually since World War II. The other is the changing patterns of American education. Other factors have, of course, been influential, but these have been determinative. During the years of the depression, the number of births in the United States fell to about two and a quarter million a year. It was the children of this decade who passed through the schools in the 1940's and early 1950's, and it was typical of school enrollment in those years to remain stable or even to decline from session to session. The routine replacement of worn out textbooks was almost the only stimulus the schools provided to publishing. Suddenly, at war's end, the birthrate increased by 65 percent in the brief period from 1945 to 1947. Thereafter the annual number of births climbed more slowly to an average of over 4,000,000, where it remained until the last few years. It then began to decline, at first slowly and for the last two years rather rapidly. This tidal wave of post-war children began to enter the schools about fifteen years ago and the impact was immediately felt, grade by grade, as they passed through the educational system. By 1965, the school system had 41,000,000 students enrolled in kindergarten and grades one through twelve, as compared with only 28,000,000 in 1950, a figure that had remained relatively stable since 1930. Publishers and publishing --United States Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1472 Front matter including foreword and table of contents to Trends in American publishing; papers presented at an institute conducted by the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science, November 5-8, 1967 Henderson, Kathryn Luther Publishers and publishing --United States Table of Contents Sun, 01 Jan 1967 00:00:00 GMT