UP Week Blog Tour Round-Up: Day 2

MIT Press: MIT Press editorial director, Gita Manaktala, explores the major shifts in scholarship and reading today (scholarship more collaborative, time to publication more imperative, final form knowledge is just one form of knowledge that we value, peer review changing, reading has changed) and discusses ways university presses can adapt to these changes to meet the needs of readers and authors.

University of California Press: As the Library Relations manager, guest blogger Rachel Lee explains why university presses matter through the eyes of the library. She expresses that, within the academy, university presses and libraries are potential partners in providing new and scholarly publishing for minimal financial return.

University of Hawai’i Press: University Hawai’i Press’ author and editorial board member Barbara Watson Andaya points out how university presses remain a unique repository of knowledge, even with the changes in today’s information age. She goes on to discuss how academic books aren’t generally accepted by commercial houses and that university presses preserve niche markets.

Wilfrid Laurier University Press: R. Bruce Elder, a filmmaker, critic, and teacher of the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at Ryerson University, discusses his views on the clear benefits of university presses over commercial publishers in the technology-dominant era of today. These benefits include the long-term investments they put in developing a writer’s critical thinking abilities and their commitment to intellectual freedom.

University Press of Florida: University Press of Florida interns, Claire Eder, Samantha Pryor, and Alia Almeida, finish off day 2 of the blog tour with a post about their time at UPF. Claire and Samantha talk about the astonishing wealth of topics that can be found in a university press book and the fun, hard-working work environment, while Alia goes a different direction by detailing her crush on UPF book Picturing Black New Orleans: A Creole Photographer’s View of the Early Twentieth Century by Arthé A. Anthony.

Tomorrow SU Press is pleased to present a post by their longtime author and former series editor, Laurence M. Hauptman, isolating three main reasons why university presses matter.

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