McGraw aims to build on record adoptions

NEW YORK, November 29, 2002 -- School-book publisher McGraw-Hill expects to capture more than 31 percent of the available el-hi adoption sales opportunities this year, up from 29 percent last year, said chief executive Harold McGraw. So far this year the company has had record adoptions, McGraw said. Market-leading performances in K-12 science and K-12 social studies helped produce this record, he said. In the key Texas science adoption, McGraw won 40 percent of the market. he said. "Although our basal reading program did not meet expectations in Oklahoma and Florida, a strong performance by our research-based reading products and literature programs produced excellent results in adoption states and the open territories," he said. "Our programs captured more than 33 percent of the K-8 reading adoption market in California and more than 20 percentof the Florida market. We also received a major new order in the third quarter from Detroit, Michigan, for more than $18 million. We believe it is the largest adoption this year in the open territories." Detroit used a blend of local, state and new federal funds from the Reading First program to purchase three McGraw products -- Open Court, Reading Mastery and Corrective Reading.

EL-HI

Wiley's "Dummies" re-gearing to courses

HOBOKEN, New Jersey, November 28, 2002 -- Publisher John Wiley & Sons licensed content from the best-selling For Dummies brand with MindLeaders, a provider of integrated e-Learning solutions. MindLeaders offers more than 1,000 courses and integrated e-Learning solutions through its partnerships with other companies. Wiley Vice President Katherine Schowalter called the deal "a natural extension of our brand management strategy."

TEXT- BOOKS WILEY

Joseph S. Tuman (communication), San Francisco State University, and Douglas M. Fraleigh (communication), California State University, Fresno, wrote St. Martin's Guide to Public Speaking (Bedford / St. Martin's). William A. Katz (education), State University of New York, Albany, wrote the eighth edition of Introduction to Reference Work, Volume I (McGraw-Hill). Joel R. Evans (marketing), Hofstra University and Barry Berman (marketing), Hofstra University wrote the eighth edition of Marketing in the 21st Century(Atomic Dog).

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Addison, Microsoft introduce series

BOSTON, Massachusetts, November 27, 2002 -- Addison-Wesley released the first three books in the Microsoft .NET Development series. The first three books are Don Box's Essential .NET Volume I: The Common Language Runtime,with Chris Sells; Shawn Wildermath's Pragmatic ADO.NET; and Damien Watkins, Mark Hammond and Brad Abrams' Programming in the .NET Environment. Addison-Wesley and Microsoft jointly developed the series. "The Microsoft .NET Series has the unique advantage of an author pool that combines some of the most insightful authors in the industry with the actual architects and developers of the .NET platform," said Don Box, a Microsoft architect who wrote one of the inaugural books.

TEXT- BOOKS REF / PROF ADDISON- WESLEY

Children's books donated to digital initiatve

Toxicology editor: 'Tis free country

WRC: Revenues dropped 6.3 percent to $56.5 million in the latest quarter, compared to a year earlier. Earnings were off 6.7 percent to $32.2 million. Citing the recession, the company forecast a difficult quarter ahead.

Houghton Legacy readers dominate California

BOSTON, Masaschusetts, November 24, 2002 -- School-book publisher Houghton Mifflin claims it has won 80 percent of California reading adoptions with its Legacy of Learning series this year. Among 300 adopting districts have been the Fresno, San Diego and San Fancsico mega-systems. In all, the new Houghton reading revenues from Californian are an estimated $82 million. Still ahead, about 45 percent of the state's distrticts are scheduled to adopt reading series in 2003 and 2004.

EL-HI HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

Eugene García (education), University of California, Berkeley, wrote the third edition of Student Cultural Diversity: Understanding and Meeting the Challenge (Houghton Mifflin). Dana-Nicoleta Lascu (marketing), University of Richmond, wrote International Marketing (Atomic Dog).

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Report: Reading is biggest el-hi market

NASDAQ delists Riverdeep stock

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, November 22, 2002 -- After a two-year acquisition binge, Ireland-based educational software manufacturer Riverdeep is having problems. The NASDAQ exchange in New York has delisted the stock after an 85 percent decline in the past year. The Fiscal 2002 net loss was $8.9 million revenues of $169 million. Riverdeep's acquisitions incluided Edmark and the Learning Company. Riverdeep has partnerships with Harcourt Education, Knowledge Universe, Learning Village, and Turner Laarning.

EL-HI RIVERDEEP

J&B buys Aspen health titles

SUDBURY, Massachusetts, November 21, 2002 -- Educational publisher Jones & Bartlett bought the health-care list of Aspen publishers, which includes 400 professional titles and 150 textbooks, from Aspen Publishers. Terms were not announced. J&B President Clayton Jones said the acquisition strengthens his company's future in the fast-growing helath-care field. The Aspen titles also include books in criminal justice and fund-raising. The transaction leaves Aspen, which is owned by European publisher Wolters Kluwer, with a list focused in law and business. The deal is part of Kluwer's strategic plan to sharpen its focus worldwide. In October the company sold its Kluwer Academic unit.

TEXT- BOOKS JONES & BARTLETT EARLIER ARTICLE Equity firm buys Kluwer Academic

Report: Authors prevail in Harper suit

NEW YORK, November 20, 2002 -- Authors who sued HarperCollins for selling books to its affiliated companies at deep discounts have reached a preliminary settlement, according to the trade journal Publishers Weekly. Attorney Rob Law in New York, representing the lead plaintiffs, Ken Englade and Patricia Simpson, was unavailable to confirm the report, nor was HarperCollins commenting. Publishers Weekly said Harper will recalculate royalties on sales made to foreign affiliates for six years, precisely November 5, 1993, to June 30, 1999, so authors receive their full royalties on the in-house transfer of books. The internal transfers had substantially cut author income. Englade and Simpson sued in 1999, and their action was later ratified as a class action on behalf of all Harper authors. The settlement reported by PW, however, cannot be final until a court hearing on its fairness. Under usual court timelines, that could not occur until February.. What this means for authors: Although HarperCollins has left academic publishing, some textbooks were still being sold in the 1993-1999 period. If the reported settlement applies to authors in the class action, which is likely although not yet confirmed, any Harper textbook author with a title in-print as late as June 30, 1993, will be eligible for an upward adjust on royalties on the in-house foreign sales. Depending on the volume of foreign sales through Harper units abroad, amounts could be substantial for some authors.

CON- TRACTS HARPER COLLINS EARLIER ARTICLE Federal judges: Class suit OK against Harper

Noted cardiac author on Hurst board

NEW YORK, November 19, 2002 -- Widely published electrophysiciologist Eric Prystowsky has joined the editorial board of the online cardiology journal Hurst's The Heart Online, McGraw-Hill Medical Publishing announced. Prystowsky has authored more than 550 scientific manuscripts and abstracts concerning arrhythmias. He is past chair of the American Heart Association's Committee on Electrocardiography and Electrophysiology.

Nancy Chumbley, of Harcourt School Publishers, was named executive vice president of sales, replacing Suzanne Davis, who is retiring.. Norman Melchert (philosophy), Virginia Commonwealth University, wrote the fourth edition of The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy (McGraw-Hill). Walter E. Oliu, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Charles T. Brusaw, NCR Corporation, and Gerald J. Alred (English), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, wrote the seventh edition of Words That Work: Writing Effectively on the Job (Bedford / St. Martin's). Anne C. Levy (business), Michigan State University, and Michele A. Paludi, Paludi & Associates, wrote the second edition of Workplace Sexual Harassment (Prentice Hall). Samuel Enoch Stumpf (philosophy), and Donald Abel (philosophy), St. Norbert College, wrote the fourth edition of Elements of Philosophy: An Introduction (McGraw-Hill).

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Scientists: Toxicology journal lacks standards

McGraw leads B2B ranking

NEW YORK, November 18, 2002 -- The trade magazine BtoB rated McGraw-Hill the top business media powerhouse in the nation. The editors said McGraw-s size was on factor, with revenues running $4.6 billion in 2001. Also, it posted a 2 percent revenue gain in the first half of this year over the same period last year. This was "an achievement in an economy where, as some wiseacres have remarked, flat is the new up," the editors said. They said too that McGraw is a model: "Many companies, including Reed Elsevier and VNU, are emulating the manner in which McGraw-Hill has transformed itself over the past several decades from a b-to-b publisher to a complete business information company. Besides being a leader in the textbook industry, McGraw publishes trade journals and offers a range of business services.Also on the BtoB list: 2. Thomson 3. VNU 4. Dow Jones 5. Reuters 6. Reed Elsevier 7. Pearson

Hot new genre: Scholarly trade books

BERKELEY, California, November 17, 2002 -- The scholarly monograph rapidly is becoming a thing of the past, says acquisitions editor Reed Malcolm of the University of California Press. "Get over it," he says, in effect, in an interview in the trade journal Publishers Weekly. Malcolm said university presses are seeking "scholarly trade books," an emerging genre that aims for a broader market than the dissertation-based monographs that once dominated the output of university presses. No high-brow arcane jargon here, he said, saying the new key to having a manuscript accepted is whether there will be a crossover audience among general, non-scholarly readers. The scholarly trade book manuscript should click with undergrad readers, Malcolm said. This opens up the college textbook market, he said: "Books that work well in the world also work well in the classroom, especially introductory seminars." A successful scholarly trade book will sell 50,000 copies compared to 1,000 tops for old-style monographs, Malcolm said.

CALIFORNIA PRESS

Varsity Group eyeing first profit

Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman (history), San Diego State University, Jon Gjerde (history), University of California, Berkeley, and Thomas G. Paterson, (history), general editor, University of Connecticut, wrote Major Problems in American History (Houghton Mifflin). Jay Lindquist (marketing), Western Michigan University, and M. Joseph Sirgy (marketing), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, wrote Shopper, Buyer, and Consumer Behavior (Atomic Dog). James Redmond (mass communication), University of Memphis, and Robert Trager (mass communication), University of Colorado-Boulder wrote Balancing on the Wire: The Art of Managing Media Organizations (Atomic Dog). Jan Spalding, senior vice president for marketing at Harcourt Education, was named president of Harcourt School Publishers. Spalding replaces Steve Gandy, who is retiring. Joe Tessitore, president at Grolier Publishing, was named Publishing Group managing director at Reed Business Information, which produces trade journals.

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SA2 biblio adding Greco works

Ex-Stanford editor: Worse than been told

PALO ALTO, California, November 16, 2002 -- The budget squeeze that led to the firing of Stanford University Press humanities editor Helen Tartar has left a bitter taste. Tartar, now seeking an editorship at another press, said her dismissal not only was unkind to her professionally and personally but bodes ill for the Stanford humanities list. The press is "basically eliminating about half its product," she said. Tartar challenged the assertion by Geoffrey Burn, Press director, that about 10 percent of the list will be cut. In the humanities, she said, the cuts will be "rapacious." Tartar said that half the books on her list for next year will never be published. Worse, Tartar said, history editor Norris Pope, who will wear two hats in her absence, will be assigned works in fields in which he has no experience: "He has no familiarity with 60 percent of the titles for which he will be responsible, and no expertise in their fields." She called the burden "a rather harsh one for Norris."

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS EARLIER ARTICLE Stanford cuts lead to axing editor

Study: Wiley higher on productivity list

Mark C. Gridley (music), Heidelberg College, wrote the eighth edition of Jazz Styles: History and Analysis (Prentice Hall). Ric Martini (anatomy), University of Hawaii, who has seven books in process continually, has never before had three big ones in a single year before. This was it. The fourth edition of his Human Anatomy, with co-authors, was published in May. The third edition ofEssentials of A&P, was published in July. The sixth edition of Fundamentals of A&P, with a 200-page applications manual, a 128-page atlas, and two student CD-ROMs went to the printer last week for a late December or early January in-stock date. Rick Morgan, vice president of business development at Harcourt Education, was named chief financial officer at Holt, Rinehart & Winston Frank Silverman (speech pathology), Marquette University, wrote Essentials of Speech, Language, and Hearing Disorders (Atomic Dog). It is the first online textbook in the field. The book features audio and video samples of speech disorders, links to select web pages, and a flash card feature on terminology. Students can purchase the online version only, or a combination of the online and print version..

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Donated books reach Kabul

NEW YORK, November 16, 2002 -- -The first shipment of more than 20,000 donated professional and educational books sent by Books For Freedom has arrived in Afghanistan. The non-profit group said donations included 12,000 volumes from John Wiley & Sons, 2,000 books from Fordham University School of Law, and 4,000 titles from the estate of Mohammed Ali Jazayery, who founded the Middle-East studies program at the University of Texas. The books will be distributed to libraries and schools. Dorsy Trailers, an Alabama shipping company, paid for the shipment to Kabul. Book For Freedom is collecting books for a second shipment for early this spring.. The group wants books in English, Farsi, Pashto and Arabic.

BOOKS FOR FREEDOM

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