Press News
NEWS FROM THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
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
