Transcripts For CSPAN2 The University Of Illinois Press At 1

CSPAN2 The University Of Illinois Press At 100 February 24, 2018

Being here today as part of the remarkable event as you know press is turning 100 this year and this month we have partnered with u of i library in order to kick off a year filled with workshops, panel, exhibits and more. Todays panel is a particularly important one. Lorrie mathison current director is joined by her two predecessors in this position willis to add Historical Context to this event ill share with you that the university of Illinois Press had six directors. In its 100 years and only four of those served in the fulltime capacity. So the reflections that we hear today encompass nearly 50 years of the presses history. It is my pleasure to introduce our moderator for todays panel dr. James d. Anderson. Ill stand on this. Dr. Anderson currently serving as dean of the school of education. Hes held other key leadership roles during his nearly 50year tenure at the university of illinois including head of the department of education policy organization, and leadership. Dr. Angder son selected selecte6 as a fellow and known internal internationally as groundbreaking scholar of africanamerican education and School Achievement in the u. S. Hes a member of the National Academy of education, and is a good School Professor of history of american education. And endowed bestowed among senior faculty members on this campus dr. Anderson served on the faculty board of the university of Illinois Press during each of the tenure of our panelists today and we thank him for being here to lead us through these reelections of the university of Illinois Press at 100. Thank you. How many years did you . Ai [laughter] node to clarify that ive been on campus during the whole time period. Except i wases a students when Dick Wentworth became in 1970 and i have to clarify that because i have colleagues who think that i was actually on the faculty. [laughter] but i was a student then and i wasnt faculty when he became the director of the u of i press and fact for me that was the year of my first publication when was published by u of i press. And a book chapter in the volume at that time. And so i was very grateful for that. I wont give you the rest because as always incase you look back on that and you say i wouldnt have accepted that for publication. [applause] but im grateful to Dick Wentworth for doing something. Thatanyway richard was born in w hampshire but graduated from University Oklahoma so how it you get to oklahoma im assuming that i was a air force had something to do with it he served in air force for four years. And then after one year internship at the university of Oklahoma Press he spent one year at the university of wisconsin press. And then spent ten years as Louisiana State press and i believe him then because as a student that was my favorite press to order because of his work in africanamerican history. And then came the u of i in late 1970s as associate director and then became drecialght of director of the press in 78 served under the that capacity in 2000 followed by four year of parttime editor. Willis received ph. D. In american lit and english american from university of nebraska. And then joined the university of nebraska press. And i was thinking they were both the big eight today people actually think that alabama were the gail of the year back then it was nebraska and oklahoma. Yeah. Hands down. No comparison. But anyway he went on to become director of John Hopkins University press from 1995 until 1998 before becoming director at illinois in november of 1998. He retired as director in 2015. Hes author of three books, book of thinks, and praise and published in 2004, 2007 and 2010. And now teachers in the university olli these acronym whats that . Olli Lifelong Learning institute okay. Program and pursue research on renaissance humanism. And i should point out also nxz with Dick Wentworth become on the fact that a his spouse marlene she did her work on ellewood and it was a really wonderful dissertation to be a part of so we have connections, and half of the doctorate except me. [laughter] mathison is the director and music acquisition editor of the university of Illinois Press so at the press in 1996 serve as editor this chief acquisition editor and market and copy writers and award manager among other roles. Shes acquiredward winning books a rifed in fields including labor history, womens history, folklore and Appalachian Studies as well as music. Mathison holds of music from illinois of university and active as a choir director, organist and singer and composer with recent appearances at the library, Illinois State youth, and the library of congress in washington, d. C. And so well proceed with each of the editors starting with dick to talk about their ten years after the press and after that we will have questions and yeah, weve got talking points i think. Talking points so floor is yours. Okay. I moved from louisiana to this frozen north land in january of 1970, and the weather was a shock but so was the condition of the first list. [laughter] the previous editor Donald Jackson had been gone for almost two years and the director mia had had a hard attack and on Doctors Orders was working short days. He had his hands full at any rate supervising the Printing Division which was then urd the University Press director. And dealing with illinois test of cycle linguistic ability which brought half of the press income when i came here that was critical thing is 100 dollar package with a lot of pieces to be purchased over and over and that brought in a lot of money to the press. [laughter] the Faculty Community the University Press board noted that problem about manuscripts not coming in. And took it on themselves to find an editor. I got a call from George Hendrick a member of the committee inquiring whether my assistant director at lsu charles east might be interested in applying for the job. And i told them charles was a southern who was going to stay in the south but that i might be interested. [laughter] i had a growing family and was a bit concerned about my kids growing up in the south but the main reason i wases interested in making a change was that we were housed in Old Library Building that was not airconditioned. [laughter] and i had a perennially grossing staff. I interviewed with Faculty Committee and was offered the job. On arrival i started contacting some of my lsu walkers and told them if they had colleagues or grad students with manuscripts coming along, they should submit them to illinois because the cupboard was bear so i thought areas to develop concentration in which the press might ultimately excel and it was obvious that i should fake first subject areas i knew best. One of these was africanamerican history. The major thrust of the lsu list was southern history which to a larger extent is africanamerican history. To get to get a start i brought with me from baton rouge what became a 14 volume papers of washington and a manuscript on Race Relations in mississippi. Both of which my successor charles east was willing to see go. He had the Jefferson Davis papers and two big paper projects would be too much. Then i started a series in black history with august myer one of the two leading scholars in this subject area. I had been talking to him about this at lsu and he was willing to switch to illinois along with just friends the editors of the book washington series. As the black history series developed, we published a book by herbert who was the author a of a major book be on the black family im sure you know it well it shall he had published a long critique of book on economics of slavery in an africanamerican journal. I suggested that we publish this as a book. And put a new yorker cartoon on the cover in which a slave was told not to be too concerned because historians would show his life was not all that rough afterall. This little book led to one of the presses most important areas of specialization. He asked if illinois, interested in starting a series on labor and working class history. Which he thought that two leading scholars in the field gave them montgomery and david would edit with him. I jumped at the chance. Within two years we added what were very successful series and womens history and immigration history. I think it is safe to say that in the 80s and 90s illinois was leading publisher of American Social history. Meanwhile, we continued to publish in clusters establishing series and areas of specialization, communication lincoln and illinois, American Music with judy, norman history and western history with liz delaney, short fiction with ann wear poetry with Larry Lieberman of the english dpght. Sports history with larry mally and practically everything focused on the u. S. By the end of the century when it was time for me to get out of the way, it was time, past time for someone to come in and broaden the horizon. [applause] dick and i actually disagree about when i came. But let me just say for fact or fiction that i think it was november of 1998 and from there through july 2015 it was clear to me that my First Priority was continuity preserving the strengths that dick had established. My last concern was also continuity loving leaving press solvent and well staffed happy for continue knewty dick continued to work as acquisition senator parttime until 2004 concentrating in particular on the sports history list. That athletic list is kept active and in shape by danny and im still grateful that dick stayed around those extra years. Because in 1998, when i think i began [laughter] the press had four fulltime and one parttime acquisitions editors plus dick. I converted one acquisitions position into an electronic publisher position. And hired paul arroyo into manage all things it lewis massacre. Paul in lewis to the presses they enable Digital Publishing to our capacity to step no elite and eventually for books also. One of the smartest things i ever did was to get Judy Mccollum the freedom to expand. Judy built into the best on the continent and lori now directs that series with us skill like armand the. I took it management of another retiree. An acquisitions powerhouse she took on the presses in the womens studies and African American studies list both began by dick. Both now thrive thanks to don duranty. Joan took on most of the history list also and added a foundational film study list now managed by danny nasser. My third challenge was to make our list more international. Dick had created an ensemble of american studies that where the envy of other University Presses with American Music and immigration. I wanted to keep all of that alive and do more i have the translations from french, german and spanish authors and expanded the music list. Edited by william kellerman. I have a series on food studies and Science Fiction a series that they now keep helping and imaginative. The fourth and most serious problem of my tenure was the rapid consolidation of the Publishing Industry. Consolidation affected every part of our work from acquisition of books and journals to production distribution and sales. We have to fend off rival presses and publishers of academic journals who are making big promises to journal editors promises that ended up doubling and tripling the prices for subscribers. Most of them libraries facing challenges of their own. Our journals manager when they fought off that competition successfully. Very successfully. And built the illinois Journals Program into one of the best in the country. In the 1990s barnes noble and borders drove the smaller books to the other business and soon those two had to fend off an even larger competitor amazon of the Worlds Largest bookstore. Amazon became our largest customer by a wide margin at amazon through its weight around like the giant it is. Making a demands about shipping, billing and discounts that demanded close attention in the gritting of teeth at the same time librarys consolidated small and midsize libraries seemed to buy copies of our books and instead we relied on interlibrary loan. In those years libraries centralized. And cut budgets for books. And in a few years i very few years the major libraries of this country like illinois utterly altered the structure and economy of scholarly publishing. And then came the recession of 2008. More bookstores closed. Borders went bankrupt the university suffered annual budget cuts. Sometimes semi annual budget cuts. As the press is technically an administrative unit and administration is always the first target to be cut when budgets are to be cut. It was expected that the press would accept the bigger cut than the colleges. I have to cut personnel into fend off even other cuts the ugly stuff the director must do. As the press and out of the recession i realized to watch the business end of things. The journals in the book series that we could no longer afford to support we lost that. But even so and got stronger and smart and able young people in every department. Im looking at you. The fifth difficulty was administrative. Working with a sequence of six different chancellors reporting to five different ice president s some a good deal better than others and adapting to the universitys new operating system dealing with higher need for disease and budget cuts and accommodating new rules and frequent policy changes. The press managers helped me deal with all of that. It is no secret that hiring all of these people were some of the best decisions i ever made. When i left in 2015 i wanted to leave on a high note but the press in the back. And a reliable successor. Who could also acquire important new books. That is a vitally important for the press like illinois. I wish came true when lauren mattresses was appointed. And now its her turn. As you heard i came to the press in 1996. I was a graduate student then. I came to work on development. So both of these directors really have a great impact on my development as a publisher and really meant toward me. Its really very humbling to be on this panel with them. I had been at the press for quite a long time but im kind of a new flight as the director. I crept into it a little at a time in a way it was sort of a soft entry. Came up through the ranks and took on aggressively more responsibility over the course of 20 years and so when i moved into the director position i really felt not that i would come in with a brandnew agenda and establish myself as a. Two other Staff Members but really come in as a peer in equal and wanting to work sidebyside with the staff. I think that is really the most important aspect of my tenure so far and i hope it will continue. That is certainly my intention. I think the strength of the press in its experience in the variety of skills that the press staff bring to their tasks bill has done an amazing job of catalyzing and illinois right along with all other publishers. The moment i took the chair we encountered a new challenge was that the state was to be able to come up with a budget. The injured for two and half years basically for the entire time that i had been the director until just a few months ago. Obviously a very unnerving time and i felt the most important thing that we could do was to continue doing what we do. And moving forward as productively as we could. And really enabling people to have the support that they needed just to make sure that our priorities could continue in place and not be derailed by this legislative blockade or by administrative turnover which also occurs. And then we have a new Vice President in the chair. To be honest i think one of the benefits of the great turnover that we have seen is that it has provided a lot of opportunities for people within the university to take on new roles. I think that is very valuable. It is also valuable for our staff as well. As people are in their positions for quite a while which many of our staff have been that they have a chance to stretch and try out new skills into grow into new kinds of expertise and really mean fresh in their jobs. So that they can stay with us and not feel like they have to go somewhere else. To learn new skills or to expand their capacity. Having the flexibility of the staff and just cultivating creativity in a belief in what were doing as is a shared sense of mission. I think that kind of internal coherence is very important in feeling like we are having a unified front facing these many challenges. The other thing that has been very important i think in the last two years as has been has been to expand the connections within the university. In giving each other a leg up day by day. We have really made a priority of connecting with other units on the campus and within the community and trying to broaden our foundation of who our constituencies are. That has been greatly enhanced by judy. But 70 staff have really come on board with her and me and taking the energy that it takes to step out into the community or to step out and present to various University Constituencies to talk about publishing to talk about alternative careers just to share our knowledge of publishing and the possibilities that it offers for young talented people across the academy. I feel like the challenge that we have heard about his continuing. Even over the past six months w

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