Press News
NEWS FROM THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
With Melville Biography, JHU Press Entered the World of Maurice Sendak
The wild rumpus, university-press style, started in 1996, when the JHU Press prepared to publish the first volume of Hershel Parker’s magisterial biography of Herman Melville. As an eminent Melville scholar and editor of the Northwestern-Newberry Writings of Herman Melville, Parker knew just about everyone in the close community of Melville experts, collectors, and devotees. Singular among them, perhaps, was the renowned illustrator and children’s book author Maurice Sendak, who died on May 8. “There’s a mystery there,” Sendak once said of Melville’s writing, “a clue, a nut, a bolt, and if I put it together, I find me.”
At Parker’s request, Sendak completed two portraits of Melville, both pen-and-ink drawings with watercolor wash, that appear in the JHU Press editions of Herman Melville: A Biography published in 1996 and 2002. Sendak brought his life-long appreciation of the writer, along with characteristic depth and playfulness, to the illustrations which serve as both jacket art and frontispiece for the two volumes. For volume one, which covers 1819 to 1851, Sendak depicts the young Melville in handsome profile with ship’s rigging in the background, holding a writer’s quill and wearing a top hat decorated with whimsical yellow flower. The illustration for the second volume, which spans 1851 to 1891, shows an older, more somber Melville, entwined in ivy and the cares of later life.
JHU Press designer Glen Burris, who created the jackets and interior designs for both volumes, worked with Sendak as he prepared the illustrations and later got to meet him. “I visited him at his home in Ridgefield in 2002,” comments Burris, “to return the illustration we used on the second volume. Sendak was a Melville fanatic and something of a curmudgeon. He had lots of opinions and could no doubt talk to Hershel Parker about Melville the way another scholar might. But he was also a very gracious host, and I wound up spending the afternoon with him. He showed me his illustrations for Brundibár, which had not yet been published, and his copy of the famous edition of Moby Dick with illustrations by Rockwell Kent. We talked about books and the work of illustrating. He was a wonderful guy.”
The Melville biography would be a great critical success for the Press and enjoy strong sales. The volumes were lauded by the New York Times and called “an astonishing achievement” by the New Republic. Tony Kushner, in a spirit Sendak, or perhaps his character Max, would surely appreciate, praised the 928-page first volume as “a great, irresistible whale of a book.” Paperback editions, featuring Maurice Sendak’s beautiful portraits of Melville, were published by the Press in 2005.
5/9/2012
JHU's Alumni Weekend Includes Reading by Richard Burgin, Press Display, and Tour
JHU's 2012 Alumni Weekend from May 4 to 6 features a reading by award-winning JHU Press author Richard Burgin along with a Press display and sale and a new opportunity for JHU alumni to tour the Press.
Burgin reads from his 2011 collection of short stories, Shadow Traffic, on Friday, May 4, at 5:00 p.m. in JHU's Mudd Hall. The reading is sponsored by the JHU Writing Seminars and is free and open to the public. JHU Alumni Weekend guests are welcome. Burgin is founder and editor of the award-winning literary journal Boulevard, a professor of communication and English at Saint Louis University, and the author of several JHU Press books.
The JHU Press display and sale has become a tradition at Alumni Weekend and will be held again this year in the "welcome tent" behind Mason Hall on JHU's Homewo0d campus. It features a selection of books and journals from the JHU faculty along with titles of general interest, including several relating to Hopkins history. An opportunity for visiting alumni to tour of the Press offices on Saturday morning, offered for the first time this year, has been fully subscribed for several weeks. For more information, contact Jack Holmes at 410-516-6928 or jmh@jhu.edu.
4/30/2012
JHU Press Staff Shares Talents with Baltimore City Students
The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Village Learning Place, a Baltimore community center near the Press’s offices in Charles Village, will celebrate the release of a special art and literary journal, The Village Review, with a reception on Tuesday, April 17th at 5 p.m. at the Village Learning Place. Since the fall, seventh and eighth graders in the Village Learning Place’s “Let’s Invest in Neighborhood Kids” (LINK) after-school program have been hard at work collaborating with a group of 13 volunteers from Hopkins Press to create this first-ever professionally published LINK student journal. The JHU Press volunteers shared their time and talents teaching the students about everything from research methods to plot development to peer editing to advertising and social media.
“This has been a tremendous opportunity for all involved,” says VLP Executive Director Liesje Gantert. “The Village Learning Place teachers and staff members have witnessed such creativity and growth in our students, and we’re excited to share The Village Review with the community.”
The reception will feature student contributors as well as speakers from the Village Learning Place and The Johns Hopkins University Press as well as an unveiling of The Village Review. Invited guests include several local dignitaries, school officials, and community members. The Village Learning Place is a nonprofit community-based library, learning center, and garden in Charles Village. To that end, we offer free cultural and educational programs and resources for all. Visit www.villagelearningplace.org for more information.
4/5/2012
New Journals and Books Enhance Project MUSE
Since Project MUSE launched its new integrated books and journals platform on January 1, nearly 14,000 book titles from 66 publishers have joined the collections of more than 500 journal titles. Collections on Project MUSE are available for institutions to purchase by subject area or imprint date. The MUSE Sales Department is pleased to report that more than 70 institutions world-wide have purchased one or more of the UPCC Book Collections. Users from the United States and ten other countries including Australia, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Norway, and Singapore, are now accessing books on MUSE.
Project MUSE is pleased to be adding 46 new titles to its journal collections in 2012. Of the titles scheduled for release in 2012, nearly half have already launched and can be accessed now in MUSE. A number of Medieval and Renaissance journals, including Mediaevalia by the SUNY Press, the Johns Hopkins University Press’ Digital Philology, and Traditio by the Fordham University Press, will join Project MUSE’s highly regarded collection. Among other subject areas that will be enhanced by multiple journal additions are Film, Theater, & Performing Arts, Asian Studies, and Religion. A complete list of all new 2012 journals can be found at muse.jhu.edu/about/new/upcoming.html.
With the addition of another batch of back issues in early 2012, the number of journals with complete runs in MUSE has grown to more than 100. A complete run means the coverage in MUSE starts with volume 1, issue/number 1 and continues through to the most recent issue. Recent additions to this list include Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Civil War History, Historically Speaking, Jewish Quarterly Review, Latin American Theatre Review, and Southern Cultures. There are an additional 23 journals currently scheduled to have back issues added to MUSE in the near future.
3/15/2012
James Franco To Discuss Hart Crane and The Broken Tower at Shriver Hall on March 9
The actor James Franco will attend a screening and discussion of his film, The Broken Tower, about the life and work of the poet Hart Crane, at Shriver Hall on JHU's Homewood campus on Friday, March 9, at 2:00 p.m.
The 90-minute film will be introduced by the actor and will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Franco; John Irwin, author of the recently published Hart Crane’s Poetry; and Linda DeLibero, director of JHU's Program in Film and Media Studies.
The event is free and open to the public.
The screening and discussion are sponsored by the JHU Writing Seminars, the Program in Film and Media Studies, and the JHU Press, which published Hart Crane’s Poetry earlier this year.
Shot in black and white, and completed in 2011, The Broken Tower is based on the biography of Crane by Paul Mariani. Franco wrote the screenplay while studying at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and later decided to produce, direct, edit, and star in the film. It premiered last year at Boston College, where Mariani teaches, and was shown at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival. A theatrical release is planned for sometime in 2012.
The film is not rated and includes content that may not be suitable for younger viewers.
3/1/2012
John Irwin Focuses on Hart Crane for the Turnbull Lecture
John T. Irwin, Decker Professor in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins, will deliver the prestigious Turnbull Lecture on Tuesday, February 28, on the subject of his new book, Hart Crane’s Poetry, recently published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
The event takes place in Hodson 110 on the Homewood campus, with a reception on the Hodson lower level starting at 6:00 p.m. and the Turnbull Lecture at 7:00 p.m. Co-hosted by the Writing Seminars and the JHU Press, the event is free and open to the public. The reception will feature a book signing of Hart Crane’s Poetry and a display and sale of related books and journals published by the JHU Press, including The Hopkins Review and the literary series Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction, both of which are edited by Professor Irwin.
Now in their 121st year, the Turnbull Lectures have run almost continually since 1891, with interruptions during the two world wars and a gap from 1984 to 1996. A partial list of the luminaries—T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Jacques Derrida, Marianne Moore, Richard Wilbur, and Robert Frost—cannot do justice to the scope of the series, nor to the individual contributions of each invitee. In recent years, the Lectures have been offered under the auspices of the Writing Seminars and have continued to bring to Homewood campus the distinguished critics and poets of the day, including W. S. Merwin, Helen Vendler, and Paul Muldoon. For more information, call 410-516-6928.
2/24/2012
JHU Press Books Recognized for Excellence
Three JHU Press publications were honored recently at the prestigious Association of American Publishers’ Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (The PROSE Awards).
The PROSE Awards annually recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing by bringing attention to distinguished books, journals, and electronic content in over 40 categories. At the awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., in February, three Hopkins books were recognized for excellence in two categories.
In the category of literature, John Irwin’s Hart Crane’s Poetry: “Appollinaire lived in Paris, I lived in Cleveland, Ohio” and Virginia Cox’s The Prodigious Muse: Women’s Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy were recognized with honorable mention. Hart Crane’s Poetry was acquired by Matt McAdam, JHUP’s editor for classics, humanities, and literary studies. The Prodigious Muse, originally acquired by executive editor Henry Tom, was stewarded through the publication process by Suzanne Flinchbaugh, JHUP’s associate editor for political science and health policy.
In the category of popular science, Bats of the United States and Canada, by Michael J. Harvey, J. Scott Altenbach, and Troy L. Best, also garnered an honorable mention. The book’s acquiring editor was Vince Burke, executive editor for life sciences, mathematics, and physics.
“We are pleased and honored again this year to have the publishing community recognize the excellent work published by the JHU Press,” remarked Press director Kathleen Keane, who attended the awards luncheon at the conference.
A complete list of the 2011 award recipients is available on the AAP website at proseawards.com/current-winners.html. Editorial Director Greg Britton’s post about these and other recent awards is available on the JHU Press Blog.
2/17/2012
JHU Press, Pratt Library co-host screening of The Amish
The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Enoch Pratt Free Library will co-host a special pre-broadcast screening of The Amish, an upcoming PBS documentary that attempts to answer many questions Americans have about this insular religious community.
The screening will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12, in Wheeler Auditorium of the library’s central branch, located at 400 Cathedral St. in Baltimore.
The documentary, part of the award-winning PBS series The American Experience, draws on the expertise of numerous JHU Press authors, including Donald B. Kraybill, a leading authority on the Amish and editor of the Press’ highly regarded series in Anabaptist studies. Filmed over the course of one year, the groundbreaking work features unprecedented access to Amish communities. The film’s producers claim it’s the first documentary to deeply penetrate and explore this attention-averse group. The Amish will premiere on PBS at 8 p.m. on Feb. 28.
A post-screening discussion will feature Kraybill and the film’s producer, Callie T. Wiser. A JHU Press book sale and signing will be held before and after the program. Admission is free.
2/7/2012
Hergé Biography Praised in The New York Times Sunday Book Review
Blistering barnacles, alert Thomson and Thompson! The New York Times has published an enthusiastic review of Benoît Peeters’ biography of Tintin creator Georges Remi, Hergé, Son of Tintin, which the Press published in January. Written by Cullen Murphy, the son of a cartoonist who collaborated with his father on the “Prince Valiant” comic strip, the review offers an appreciative appraisal of both the book and Remi himself.
“The great merit of Hergé, Son of Tintin,” Murphy writes, “. . . is that Georges Remi is allowed to emerge in three dimensions as what he in fact was: not an intellectual, not an activist, not a saint, but an ordinary man of his times. To encounter him is something of a surprise, because so much else about Tintin is extraordinary. Leave aside the new Spielberg blockbuster, which incorporates elements of three Tintin adventures (‘The Crab With the Golden Claws,’ ‘The Secret of the Unicorn’ and ‘Red Rackham’s Treasure’) and seems destined to create a durable movie franchise. The 24 books in the series have sold about 350 million copies and been translated into roughly 80 languages . . . A flawed and not terribly happy man grew a modest talent into something vastly greater than himself. I don’t know what a semiotician would make of that. A layman might call it art.”
Peeters' book has reveived numerous favorable reviews, and it was the subject of a recent post on the JHU Press Blog by marketing director Becky Brasington Clark.
1/20/2012
JHU Press Blog Serves Up Tea and TinTin
The newly launched JHU Press Blog is off to a good start connecting readers to Press publications that tell important stories behind the day's headlines. As the Republican primaries heated up this week with voting in New Hampshire and jockeying in South Carolina, JHUP blogger Claire McCabe Tamberino highlighted the Press’s newly published book on the rise of the Tea Party and its likely influence on the 2012 elections.
Last week, marketing whiz Becky Clark offered an entertaining look at how publishers including JHUP can take advantage of opportunities suchas the promotional frenzy that swirls around the release of a big-budget movie.
The much-anticipated release of Steven Speilberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, for example, gave the JHUP publicity team a golden opportunity to boost interest in the Press's new biography of Tintin’s creator, Hergé, Son of Tintin, by Benoît Peeters. The book has already been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and PRI’s The World. And, Becky notes with obvious relish, “it’s scheduled for that crème de la crème of book reviews—the New York Times Book Review—Sunday, January 22.”
Read more about JHU Press publications and the art and business of publishing, and hear directly from our authors and staff, by following the JHU Press Blog.
1/10/2012
Robert Binstock, 75, Prominent Gerontologist and JHUP Author
Robert H. Binstock, a prominent gerontologist and professor of aging, health and society at Case Western Reserve University, died on November 22, 2011, in Cleveland, Ohio, at the age of 75.
A prolific author, Dr. Binstock edited and authored many books with JHU Press over the years, including Aging Nation: The Economics and Politics of Growing Older in America (2008) and Public Health for an Aging Society (February 2012).
Read an obituary on the American Society on Aging website and on Case Western Reserve University’s The Daily.
1/6/2012
JHU Press Launches Blog and Welcomes Books to Project MUSE
The JHU Press welcomed 2012 by launching a new blog that will discuss the world of scholarly publishing, JHUP publications and related current events, and life inside the Press. The JHU Press Blog went live on January 1 and will provide a regular forum for the authors and editors of our publications to comment on their work and how it relates to the news of the day.
The blog's first post was written by Project MUSE director, Dean Smith, an appropriate choice since MUSE launched its first-ever book collections also on January 1.
The new combined platform for books and journals provides access to more than 14,000 books from 66 university presses and related scholarly publishers. The change means that for the first time book content will be available alongside MUSE's over 500 electronic journals. All of the books in MUSE's new UPCC Book Collections will be visible in search results and when browsing on the platform. Users at libraries which have purchased or subscribed to book collections on MUSE will have immediate full-text access to content from those collections.
1/3/2012
New Project MUSE Platform Goes Live on January 1, 2012
Project MUSE's new combined platform for books and journals will go live on January 1, 2012. At the launch of the new platform, over 14,000 books from 66 university presses and related scholarly publishers will be available alongside MUSE's over 500 electronic journals.
Highlights of the new Project MUSE platform include:
• Faceted searching, with options to filter search results by subject area, author, and language
• Enhanced browsing by subject area, title, or publisher, across books and journals or filtered by content type
• Powerful new hierarchical subject structure, allowing users to drill down to the most relevant content and encouraging discovery
• Search box on each page of the site, with predictive search terms
• New access icons to help users clearly identify content to which they have paid access through their institution, free sample content, and open access content
• Discovery and research tools at both the book and journal article level, including More by This Author and Related Content links, citation downloading/exporting, and social sharing
• "Search Inside..." feature for both books and journals
• DOIs at title and chapter level for books, article level for journals
At launch on January 1, all of the books in MUSE's new UPCC Book Collections will be visible in search results and when browsing on the platform. Users at libraries which have purchased or subscribed to book collections on MUSE will have immediate full-text access to content from those collections.
MUSE will provide a one-month preview period during January 2012 to allow librarians and scholars to discover the significant breadth and depth of book content available on Project MUSE. At the end of the preview period, January 31, 2012, search results will default to only content to which the searcher has full-text access. At this point, users will have the option to toggle the search to show all available books and journals relevant to a search, if desired. Books will continue to be visible while browsing.
A search box on every page of the site offers users the option of searching both books and journals, or filtering by content type prior to running the search. At the search results level, users may again filter to just books or just journals, as well as to only content for which they have full text access.
Questions about the platform transition may be directed to Project MUSE Customer Support at muse@press.jhu.edu. A preview of the new platform is available on the MUSE beta site at http://beta.muse.jhu.edu.
12/21/2011
Celebrating the Fifth Edition of a Press Best-Seller, The 36-Hour Day
The JHU Press and the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences will celebrate the publication of the fifth edition of The 36-Hour Day at an event on the Hopkins medical campus on December 7. A reception and book signing begins at 6:00 p.m. outside the Owens Auditorium in the Koch Cancer Research Building, followed by a talk by the book’s co-author, Dr. Peter Rabins, at 7:00 p.m.
Originally published in 1981, The 36-Hour Day was the first book of its kind. Thirty years later, with dozens of other books on the market, it remains the definitive guide for people caring for someone with dementia.
Now in a new and updated edition, this best-selling book features thoroughly revised chapters on the causes of dementia, managing the early stages of dementia, the prevention of dementia, and finding appropriate living arrangements for the person who has dementia when home care is no longer an option.
Copies of The 36-H our Day will be offered for sale at a special event discount, and co-author Dr. Rabins will be available to sign them. Other recent books in the Johns Hopkins Press Health Book Series, along with other recent books by JHMI faculty, will be for sale. Many of these authors will be in attendance and available to sign books.
The event is free and open to the public, but an R.S.V.P. is requested to rsvp@press.jhu.edu or 410-516-7902
12/1/2011
Mellon Grant Supports Study of “Patron-Driven Acquisitions” at Libraries
The Johns Hopkins University Press has been awarded a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to conduct a study of “patron-driven acquisitions” (PDA), an increasingly important approach to book purchasing by academic libraries and one that is likely to have a significant impact on book publishers, particularly university presses. The study will be conducted by Press director Kathleen Keane; Joe Esposito, an independent publishing consultant; Kizer Walker, director of collection development at the Cornell University Library; and Terry Ehling, the associate director of Project MUSE.
With a PDA system in place, a library patron is able search the catalog for a particular book and, if the title is not in the collection, request that the library purchase it. The approach can reduce operating costs for libraries since the purchase of some titles will be delayed until a patron actually makes a request and, for other titles, there will be no purchase at all. PDA is an evolving practice in the library world and varies among institutions; publishers are understandably concerned about its impact on book sales.
“The publication of scholarly monographs has been under stress for many years,” commented project investigator Joe Esposito on the blog, Scholarly Kitchen. “It is not unusual for a university press to have a total sale of 300 copies for some titles, a number insufficient to cover the costs of editorial acquisition, production, manufacturing, and distribution. Pointing to PDA as a new headache for monograph publishers ignores the fact that the head already aches and that the systems being developed for PDA may be useful for other purposes, including enhanced discovery.”
“PDA has profound implications for university presses,” notes Project MUSE’s Terry Ehling, “and this survey and analysis will be invaluable as presses join the conversation about PDA and plan strategically for its inevitable impact.”
11/15/2011
JHU Press Night at the Ivy Book Shop on November 11
Meet some of the Press’s local authors and get a jump on holiday shopping at the Ivy Book Shop’s JHU Press Night on November 11, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The event at the popular independent book store in north Baltimore is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.
More than a dozen JHU Press authors will be on hand to meet guests and sign books, including: Gil Sandler (Home Front Baltimore); Cindy Kelly (Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore);
Mike Gesker (The Orioles Encyclopedia);
Charley Mitchell (Maryland Voices of the Civil War); Michael Olesker(The Colts’ Baltimore); Fraser Smith (Here Lies Jim Crow); Bryan MacKay (Baltimore Trails); Ed Papenfuse (Maryland State Archives Atlas of Historic Maps of Maryland); Frank Mondimore and Patrick Kelly (Borderline Personality Disorder); Sara and Jeff Palmer (When Your Spouse Has a Stroke); Dinah Miller, Annette Hanson, and Steve Daviss (Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work).
The Ivy Book Shop is located at 6080 Falls Road, in the Lake Falls Village shopping center at Falls Road and Lake Avenue in Baltimore.
For more information, call the Ivy at 410-377-2966.
11/03/2011
Nobel Prize for JHU’s Adam Riess Puts “Dark Energy” in the News
JHU Professor Adam Riess has refused to stay away from dark energy, which in his case is a good thing. The young astronomer is one of a trio to win the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics and share in the $1.49 million award. Riess, 41, says the work has been "an incredibly exciting adventure" and called the announcement unexpected and jaw-dropping. Through his study of a type of exploding star called a Type Ia supernova , Riess discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, driven by a still-unexplained force dubbed, yes, that's right, "dark energy."
To understand more about "dark energy"—and the universe—the Johns Hopkins University Press has published Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Cosmos by Iain Nicolson.
The book is described by the Wall Street Journal as "a lucid essay on the cosmos" and by New Scientist as "a first-class overview for the non-specialist, with enough meaty detail for scientists too." Read more about Dark Side of the Universe and hear Adam Riess speak about winning the Nobel Prize.
Congratulations and best wishes to our distinguished Hopkins colleague!
10/04/2011
JHU Press Books and Authors at the Baltimore Book Festival
The Johns Hopkins University Press, the George Peabody Library, and Sheridan Libraries of JHU will jointly host a variety of literary activities in the exhibit hall and stack room of the historic Peabody Library during 2011 Baltimore Book Festival. The event will be held in Mount Vernon Place from noon to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 23 and 24, and from noon to 7 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 25.
The JHU Press Book Sale takes place in the exhibition hall throughout the festival, with Press authors scheduled to meet the public and sign books on all three days. Also planned are activities for children, readings by the JHU Writing Seminars faculty and students, discussions of Peabody Library holdings by members of its Special Collections staff, advice on book collecting and preservation by experts at the Sheridan Libraries, and music in the library.
Read the complete schedule of events planned for the Peabody Library and learn more about about the 2011 Baltimore Book Festival.
9/20/2011
Awards Recognize Effective Book Design
A number of recent awards highlight the importance of effective book design to the overall success of the JHU Press publishing program. “Book and jacket designers as a group are unsung heroes of the book publishing world,” comments Brendan Coyne, JHUP’s exhibits and awards manager. “It takes special skill, artistry, and unflagging patience to design a book properly and we here at Johns Hopkins University Press are honored to work with a group of dedicated professionals who know how to craft attractive, readable, and successful designs.”
Six JHUP books won prizes in the Washington Book Publishers 2011 Design and Effectiveness Awards competition. Daniel O’Quinn’s Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790; and The Bestiary, or Procession of Orpheus, by Guillaume Apollinaire, won first-place honors, for typographic text and typographic cover, respectively. Second-place prizes went to A Patient’s Guide to Heart Rhythm Problems, by Todd J. Cohen, M.D., for technical text; and to Maritime Maryland, by William S. Dudley, for illustrated text. James R. Spotila’s Saving Sea Turtles and C. Renée James’s Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Probably Took for Granted won third place in illustrated and typographic text, respectively.
At the 25th Annual New York Book Show, the Book Industry Guild of New York honored three JHUP books. Maritime Maryland took first place among professional scholarly books, Walter G. Ellison’s Second Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Maryland and the District of Columbia took first place among professional reference books, and Railroads in the African American Experience, by Theodore Kornweibel, Jr., won an award of merit in general trade nonfiction.
Congratulations to these award-winning designers:
Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790 – Martha Sewall
The Bestiary, or Procession of Orpheus – Glen Burris
A Patient’s Guide to Heart Rhythm Problems – Martha Sewall
Maritime Maryland – Glen Burris
Saving Sea Turtles – Amy Ruth Buchanan
Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Probably Took for Granted – Wilma Rosenberger
Second Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Maryland and the District of Columbia – Martha Sewall
Railroads in the African American Experience – Kimberly Glyder
8/30/2011
Project MUSE Beta Site Offers Preview of Integrated Book and Journal Content
Project MUSE has released a beta web site previewing its combined digital book and journal content. The beta site, http://beta.muse.jhu.edu, will be available through the end of this year, allowing scholars, librarians, and students to become familiar with the newly enhanced platform before the changeover to accommodate MUSE’s forthcoming eBook Collections on January 1, 2012.
The beta site showcases Project MUSE’s sophisticated new cross-content, faceted search functionality, and allows browsing of books and journals side-by-side. A powerful new hierarchical subject structure permits users to drill down to the most relevant content, and encourages discovery. Over 300 digital books, from 27 publishers, are available for free sample access on the site during the beta period. The MUSE collections launching in January will encompass over 12,000 book titles from the University Press Content Consortium (UPCC), a collaborative of more than 65 major university presses and related scholarly publishers. The beta site is still in active development, with many additional features planned for inclusion prior to January.
Project MUSE’s beta site also includes the complete content from the nearly 500 distinguished scholarly journals now available on the current MUSE site. Visitors to the beta site will have access to the same content for which they have rights on the current site, via their institutional affiliation and associated subscriptions. New easy-to-follow icons clearly distinguish content which is available in full text to the user, a free sample or open access, or restricted.
The new search functionality on the beta site provides a search box on every page, with an option for the user to search both books and journals or choose just one content type. Once search results are returned, facets allow for further filtering the results by research area, author, language, and content type, and to only material for which the user has full text access. Search results may include journal articles or book chapters, with multiple results from a single book title rolled up into a single cumulative entry. Efforts are ongoing to optimize the search function to return the most relevant results with the best possible speed.
Browsing of book and journal content is available by title, publisher, and research area. MUSE is implementing a new hierarchical structure of academic research areas, promoting discovery of pertinent content while moving from a broad survey through to specific sub-disciplines. With over 12,000 books anticipated for inclusion in MUSE’s initial ebook collections, the new structure will provide a powerfully efficient path to the most needed material.
At the individual book level, users can browse chapter-level snippets and view pertinent details about each title. A “Search Inside This Book” feature allows for discovery within the book content without leaving the title’s main page. Breadcrumbs leading back to the hierarchical research areas provide paths to related books and journals.
Many features are still in development on Project MUSE’s new site and will be released over the next few months. The following will be available by the formal site launch on January 1, 2012, for both books and journal articles: enhanced Related Content links; improved saving, viewing, and exporting of citations; content-integrated “More by this Author” links; and emailing, bookmarking, and sharing capabilities. Support for OpenURL functionality and Shibboleth authentication will also be in place by January 1.
Project MUSE eBook Collections will provide libraries, researchers, and students access to a wealth of high quality book-length scholarship, fully integrated with MUSE’s essential electronic journal collections in a user-friendly environment with rich discovery features. MUSE books will be released electronically simultaneous with print publication, in PDF format, searchable and retrievable to the chapter level. Frontlist, backlist, interdisciplinary, and subject-specific collections will be available for purchase, with perpetual access rights, unlimited simultaneous usage of book content, no DRM and no restrictions on printing or downloading. COUNTER-compliant usage statistics, as well as free MARC records, will be available for books on MUSE. Details on available collections, purchase options, and prices will be announced no later than October 1, 2011. The new, integrated Project MUSE web site, including book collections, will be live on January 1, 2012. More details are available at http://muse.jhu.edu/ebooks.
Project MUSE is a leading provider of digital humanities and social science content; since 1995, its electronic journal collections have supported a wide array of research needs at academic, public, special, and school libraries worldwide.
8/5/2011
