Transcripts For CSPAN2 The University Of Illinois Press At 1

University press have only six directors and its 100 years and only four of those served in a fulltime capacity. So, but reflections that we hear today encompasses 50 years of history. It is my pleasure to introduce the moderator for todays panel, doctor james anderson. Doctor anderson serves as the dean of the school of education and has held leadership roles during his nearly 50 year tenure at urbanachampaign including serving as the head of the department of education policy organization and leadership. Doctor anderson was selected in 2016 as the unified president ial fellow and is known internationally as the groundbreaking scholar in the history of education and School Achievement in the u. S. Hes a member of the National Academy of education and is a professor of history of American Education and endowed member on the campus. Hes also served on the faculty board of the University Press during each of the tenures of the panelists today and we thank him for being here to lead us through the reflections at the University Press 100. How many years did you say . I may need to clarify that. I was a student then and i was on the faculty and 78 when he became the director of the press and that was the year my first publication which was published by the u. Of i press so i was very grateful for that. But im grateful for doing so. He was born in New Hampshire but graduated from the university of oklahoma. How did he get from New Hampshire to oklahoma. An air force for four years and then after a year of University Press he spent one year at the university of Wisconsin Press and then spent ten years as the Louisiana State University Pre press. As a student, that was my favorite store because of the work in the industry. They came as a social director and then became director of the press and 78 and served in that capacity until 2000. Followed by four years as a parttime editor. He received his phd in late in English Literature from the university of nebraska at then joined the university of nebraska press. I was thinking they were the big eight. Back then it was nebraska and oklahoma and there was no comparison. But anyway, he went on to become the director of Johns Hopkins University Press 1895 to 1898 before becoming director in november 1988. He retired as director in 2015 i2015and is the author of three books. And these were published in 2004, 2007 and 2010 and now teaches at the University Lifelong Learning Institute program and pursues research on the renaissance humanism. I should point out also in connection and a member of the Dissertation Committee of the spouse. She did her work and it was a wonderful dissertation. The director and music acquisition editor of the university of Illinois Press who survived the press in 1896 and served as the editor in chief Acquisitions Editor marketing copywriter among others. Awardwinning books and fields including labor history, womens history, folklore and evolution studies as well as the music. The doctorate of music from the university of illinois and required director, singer and composer with recent appearances at illinois State University and at the library of congress in washington, d. C. Well precede with each of the editors to talk about their ten year added to the press and after, we will have questions. We have some talking points. I moved from louisiana to this frozen nort north landed in january of 1970 and the weather was a shock, but so was the condition. It had been gone for almost two years and the director had a heart attack and on the doctor s orders was working short days. He had his hands full supervising the Printing Division that was under the University Press director and dealing with the linguistic abilities which brought in half of the press income. When i came here, that was the critical thing was the 100 package with a lot of pieces to be purchased over and over and that brought in a lot of money to the press. The Faculty Committee, the University Press board noted the problem about the manuscripts not coming in and took it upon themselves to find an editor. I got a call from george hendrick, a member of the committee inquiring whether or not might assis my assistant diu might be interested in applying for the job and i told him charles was a southerner who was going to stand but i might be interested. [laughter] i have a growing family and was a bit concerned about my kids growing up in the south, but the main reason i was interested in making the change was we were housed in an Old Library Building that wasnt airconditioned, and i have a grossing staff. I interviewed with the Faculty Committee and was offered a job. On arrival i started contacting some of my authors and told them if they had colleagues or students with manuscripts coming along, they should submit them to illinois because the cover was there. I thought it was important to develop areas of concentration in which the press might ultimately excel and it was obvious that i should look at the subject areas i knew best. One of these was history. The major thrust of the list was southern history which to a large extent is africanamerican history. To get a start, i brought with me from baton rouge with became papers of booker t. Washington in a manuscript on Race Relations in mississippi, both of which my successor was willing to see go. Then i started a series with the two leading scholars in this subject area. I had been talking to him about this at lsu and he was willing to switch along with his friends, the editor of the series. As the series developed, we published a book by a group who is the author of a major book on the family, im sure you know it well. It was written and published on the economics of slavery in an African American journal. I suggested that we published this as a book and put a new yorker cover in which a slave was told not to be too concerned because historians would show that his wife wasnt all that rough after all. A letter to one of the important areas of specialization. They asked if they would be interested in starting a series on the leader and workingclass history which he thought of scholars in the field was added with him. I jumped at the chance. Within two years, we added what were very successful season womens history and immigration history and i think it is safe to say that in the 80s and 90s, illinois was the publisher of American Social history. Meanwhile, we continue to publish in clusters of establishing the specialization, communication, American Music with judy mcauliffe, mormon history and western history with liz delaney, Larry Lieberman with the english department, sports history with larry malley and practically everything focused on the u. S. To broaden the horizon. [applause] we actually disagree about when i came but let me just say i think it was november of 1988 from bear to july, 2015 it was clear to me that my First Priority was continuity preserving the strength that he had established. That athletic list is kept active and in shape. When i began, the press had fulltime and one parttime acquisition editors, but dick was acquiring a new manager. A second problem was the lack of any expertise in Digital Publishing. I converted one position into an electronic publisher position. Paul and lewis, the most admired and beloved members enabled us to add Digital Publishing to our capacity of staff vital for the journals immediately and eventually for the, too. One of the smartest things i did is twas to give the freedom to expand her American Music list which was another. Judy build music list into the best on the continent and now directs the series with a skull skills. Joan was an acquisitions powerhouse and took on the presence of the womens studies and African American studies both begun and both now thrive. He had created an ensemble of american studie studies that wee envy of other University Press. American labor, American Sports and so on. And i wanted to keep all of the allies and do more. I have translations from latin american authors and expanded the music list. The most serious problem was the rapid consolidation of the publishing industry. The publishers of academic journals who are making big promises to the journal editors, promises but ended up doubling and tripling the prices for the subscribers most of them libraries facing challenges of their own. The journals managers fought off the competition successfully, very successfully and the Journal Program was built into one of those in the country. They have to fend of had to fenr competitor, the Worlds Largest bookstore amazon. Amazon became the largest customer by a wide margin, and amazon through its weight around like the giant it is, and making demands about shipping, building and discounts that demanded close attention and the grinding of teeth. At the same time, libraries cant solve thlibrariescomes obd midsized libraries used to buy copies of the book and instead relied on the loans from the decreasing number of libraries. In those years they digitized and cut budgets for books and in a few years, very few years the nature rightbrace of this country like illinois altered the structure and economy of the publisher. Then came the recession of 2008. More bookstores closed. Workers went bankrupt. The university suffered annual budget cuts. Sometimes semiannual budget cuts. Since the press is technically an administrative unit and the administration is always the biggest an end of the first tart to be cut when budgets are cut, it was expected that the press would accept a bigger cut than the colleges. To fend off other cuts as a director must do. As they climbed out of the recession i relied heavily on chief Financial Officer to watch the business end of things. They shared the book series we could no longer afford to support. We lost that. But even so, the press maintained its strength and got stronger and helped people in every department. The fifth difficulty was administrative working with a sequence of six different chancellors reporting just five different Vice President s, some a good deal better than others and adapting to the new operating system with the budget cuts and accommodating new rules and frequent policy changes. The press managers, my assistant cathy oneill helped them deal with all of that. It is no secret that hiring cathy, chris, michael or some of the best decisions i ever made. When i left in 2015 and i wanted to leave on a high note with a strong staff and reliable successor who could also acquire important new books. That is vitally important for a press like illinois. My wish came true when a plaintiff in the military. [applause] as you heard i came to the press and 96 and was a graduate student and. I came to work on development with judy and so it really both of these had a great impact on my development as a publisher and really meant for me. So it is humbling to be on a panel with them. Ive been at the press for a long time but as the directors ive been in the position for just two and a half years. I kind of crept into it a little at a time in a way, so it was a sort of soft entry. Came up through the rink, took oranks, tookon more responsibile course of 20 years. When i moved into the director position, i felt not that i would come in with a brandnew agenda and establish myself as superior to other staff members, but come in as a peer and equal wanting to work sidebyside. That is the most important aspect of my tenure so far and i hope it will continue. That is certainly my intention. The strength of the press in the variety of skills that the press staff bring to their staff enable us to face the challenges we have ahead of us. There was quite an amazing job of cataloging the challenges that they are facing in illinois right along with the publishers. Basically the moment i took the chair, we encountered a new challenge which is that the state wasnt going to be able to come up with a budget for the state and that went on for two and a half years. That was obviously a very unnerving time and i felt the most important thing we could do is continue doing what we do moving forward as productively as we could. To be able to have the support of the needed intake sure that our priorities must be a coup coultocontinue and not be deraiy this legislative blockade or administrative takeover to develop a time like he hired me and left basically. Then we had a new Vice President and the chair. To be honest, i think one of the benefits that we have seen in the university of illinois that its provided them with opportunities for people within the university to take on the new roles and that is very valuable for our staff as well as people are in their positions for quite a while which many of our staff have been they have a chance to stretch is to grow from new kind of expertise and remain fresandremained crushingo they can stay with us. So the flexibility of the staff just cultivating a creativity and believe is a shared sense of mission. We were having a unified front. The most important part has been to expand with any university so at the same time giving each other a leg up day by day he we made a priority of connecting with others on the campus and the community to try to broaden our foundation of who our constituents is our. So many staff have come on board in taking the energy just about to the community or to present to the various University Constituent is to talk about publishing, to talk about alternative careers. To share the knowledge of publishing and the possibilities of offers young talented people across the academy and diversity. So, i feel certainly the challenges that we have heard about our continuing even over the past six months weve continued to see Library Sales declining to specialized work so certainly it is one of the challengchallenges to find bookd journalism that speaks more broadly than the constituencies that speaks institute for nonspecialists outside of the academy so that we have some diversity in our portfolio. By diversifying the type of publications and by continuing to grow in the Journalist Program and have it so closely integrated in the books is such an important strategy for us and journalists staff have done a wonderful job of identifying the heavy crossover appeal to the various changes we have on the e book asid side and we have a bir city in terms of reaching scholarly constituencies in the universities. The regional list speaks to the midwest and the state, and we are trying to strengthen the other campuses of the university of illinois. So, i think all of these allow for strengthenin the strengthend diversity of the staff, strengthening the connections and partnerships and alliances. If there comes a time when there are questions on the administration and their press about the value of the University Press is supplying we are not the only ones answering if there are other voices that are speaking to the ways the the contribute to the scholarly conversations and communities. [applause] do you have any questions . I wondered if you could choose a book to acquire in with High Expectations by that time it came out today popularity . I got a letter from a person that said he had a manuscript of 800 features which included 100 pages of single space footnotes on the western history and migration to the west. I told him thats going to have to be good to be published in that size and it was really good. The planes across one halfdozen was a finalist for the pulitzer and got a frontpage review in the Washington Post by the leading western historians so that was the book that made a tremendous contribution because the author died on the operating table shortly after the book was accepted so that was a very tragic thing but she did a great job working on it editorially making sure that it was all ready to go. That is probably my idea of the best books published in that they. This will not surprise you, i didnt acquire this by myself though i will take some of the credit i had them join me to talk to the committee about what we could offer into the questions that i fumbled with that other people to answer very readily. And as a result, we became the publisher for the chapter in chicago and i think the book is still doing well. I will mention a book that i had a small part in acquiring. One of the joys of my tenure said i was able to take on the significant plus and one of the books that she acquired and her fingerprints were on every page literally was the book the beautiful music all around us which had won an award and National Media profile and has done extremely well for us. Never met a person he didnt want to tell about in hi talk ak and he is a model for the way that we need our offers to connect. The reason the book is so important. These were made when collectors from the recording drove across the country and their pickup trucks in the town square that anybody could come out and sing them into the machine and have them preserved that way. These were children o