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Louisiana State Press chief retires| BATON ROUGE, Louisiana, January 31, 2003 -- The director of Louisiana State University Press for 28 years, Les Phillabaum, retired amid accolades for a record of growth and literary and scholarly landmarks. During his tenure, the Louisiana State Press developed a strong list in Southern literature, history, politics and African-American studies. Sales grew from $15,000 a year to $3 million. The annual output grew from 30 titles to 80. Phillabaum was president of the American Association of University Presses in 1985. Named interim director while a search is conducted for a successor was William Bossier, who has been associate director and business manager. |
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Pearson's Concert finds first buyer| LA GRAND, California, January 30, 2003 -- The Le Grand Union Elementary School District became the first in California to adopt the Concert K-12 master management web tool, Pearson Education announced. Concert, a product of Parson Education Technologies, seamlessly links all the functions of a school district, enabling school district leaders to manage their entire educational enterprise, including standards-aligned instruction, lesson planning, assessment, and educational content. |
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Jones & Bartlett buys health titles| SUDBURY, Massachusetts, January 27, 2003 -- Educational publisher Jones & Bartlett, following through on its expansion-through-acquisition policy, bought 15 health-care business and management titles from Managment Concepts Inc. The new titles will be folded in the existing Jones & Bartlett prouct line. Measnwhile, the company said it is scouting for other acquisitons in health care and related fields. In November, J&B bought 400 professional titles and 150 textbooks from Aspen Publishers. |
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R.I.P.: Joseph Wharton Lippincott Jr.| BRYN MAWR, Pennsylvania, January 26, 2003 -- The retired chairman and president of the J.B. Lippincott publishing company, Joe Lippincott, died at his home. Lippincott, 88, suffered respiratory disease. Lippincott, the fourth generation of his family to head the firm, was the last to run it before it was sold to Harper & Row in 1978. Under his leadership, the company launched educational products, expanded internationally, and published popular novels. "He believed publishers and authors should have close relationships," said son Jay Lippincott III, president and chief executive officer of what is now the Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins health publishing company. "He was not all about dollars and cents. He felt publishing was about getting the creative effort of the author into the marketplace," Jay Lippincott said. Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins is a subsidiary of Dutch publishing house Wolters Kluwer. Lippincott was a descendant of Joshua Ballinger Lippincott, whose family founded the firm in 1785. Also, he was a great-grandson of Joseph Wharton, who founded the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore College. Lippincott was a former chairman of National Library Week. In retirement in Vero Beach, Florida, he volunteered at a secondhand book store that gave its proceeds went to the local public library. | 
LIPPINCOTT
WILLIAMS
& WILKINS
SUCCESSOR
COMPANY |
BertelsmannSpringer draws seven bidders| GÜTERSLOH, Germany, January 26, 2003 -- The German-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann, which wants to sell its scientific publishing subsidiary BertelsmannSpringer, received seven bids. The offers are being assessed. Bertelsman wants US$1.1 billion, insiders said, noting that the initial bids are as low as US$880,000. In inviting bids, Bertelsmann did not bind itself to accept any offers. The bidders, according to reports, include competing scientific publishers Wolters Kluwer, Reed Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, and Thomson. Taylor amp; Thomson reportedly is backed by investment banker Apax. Other bids reportedly include London-based Candover Partners and Cinven, which jointly bought Kluwer Academic Publishing last fall for US$520 million. |
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Another copyshop sued over coursepacksLOS ANGELES, California, January 25, 2003 -- On behalf of four publishers, the Copyright Clearance Center sued Los Angeles-based Westwood Copies, alleging that it had facilitated illegal copying for coursepacks for college courses. The suit represents a renewed publisher crackdown to protect copyrighted materials, the CCC said. "Coursepack copying was a thorn in the side of college publishers for many years," the CCC said in a statement that acknowledged it had backed off lawsuits after a 1991 ruling against Kinko's that had dissuaded many copyshops from engaging in the practice. Now, said, CCC, "publishing executives believe there has been an increase in activity." The Westwood suit is on behalf of journal publishers Elsevier Science, MIT Press, Sage and Wylie. The suit coincides with an action in October against Custom Copies & Textbooks in Gainesville, Florida. Said Elsevier Science general counsel Mark Seeley: "You have to keep at it. Sometimes these operations are going to think no one is monitoring and will try to make a few bucks until someone knocks on the door."
What this means for authors: Many professors draw on textbook chapters, parts of scholarly books, and journal articles for coursepacks, which they have printed and bound at copyshops. The practice is legal so long as either the professor-compiler or the copyshop acquires permission from the owners of the material, who usually charge a fee for copying. Copying is without permissions deprives book authors of revenue they should have coming under copyright law. Publishers lose their share too. Because most journal authors don't retain any rights to their material, it is only journal publishers who lose revenue from illegal coursepacks. |
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Harper deal called best for most authorsNEW YORK, January 24, 2003 -- Most HarperCollins authors, except perhaps for the best-sellers, would probably fare best as part of the class-action suit against the publisher for deep discounts on export sales to other Harper companies, the Authors Guild said. "It is highly unlikely that opting out of the settlement and pursuing separate legal action against the publisher would warrant the costs of litigation," the Guild said. The Guild issued its conclusion after a legal analysis of a proposed out-of-court settlement for royalties that were lost to Harper authors because of the unwarranted discounting from late 1993 to mid-1999. Because Harper had abandoned educational publishing by 1993, these are mostly trade-book authors, although educational authors whose titles were still being sold by Harper stand to benefit.
What you can do for authoring: If you're a beneficiary of the HarperCollins class-action settlement, let SA2 know the particulars as your correspondence progresses -- and when you get your check. Your participation will help us keep members abreast of developments. Your autonomy is assured. Contact: SA2. |
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Harcourt layoffs to total fewer than 400| ORLANDO, Florida, January 23, 2003 -- The layoffs at Harcourt Education will total fewer than 400, insiders at the corporate headquarters in Orlando said. Even so, that will be 13 percent of the company's payroll, and some divisions, especially el-hi, will take extra-heavy hits, the sources said. Spared from the cuts will be the Psychological Corporation testing unit and the fast-growing trade book division. |
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No answers from Faxon/RoweCom summit| NEW YORK, January 22, 2003 -- The Faxon/RoweCom library subscription services of financially troubled Divine Inc. may find a buyer, according to participants in a meeting about what's next in the mess resulting from a shutdown at Faxon, Meanwhile, journal publishers Blackwell, Elsevier and Wiley are continuing to send journals to 600 academic libraries whose subscription fees were swallowed up in the Divine machinery. At the New York meeting, Divine said a competitor, Ebsco Industries, may buy its RoweCom business in Europe. Divine said it also is talking with potential buyers for its U.S. operations but didn't name them. Particpants in the meeting including representatives of publishers, libraries and other creditors. |
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | Nels M. Bailkey (history), Tulane University, and Richard Lim (history), Smith College, wrote the sixth edition of Readings in Ancient History: Thought and Experience from Gilgamesh to St. Augustine (Houghton Mifflin). |
| Beth Ford, senior vice president for global operations and information technology at Scholastic, made the list for Crain's "40 Under 40: New York's Rising Stars." |
 | Benton Rain Patterson (journalism), University of Florida, and Coleman E.P. Patterson (business), Hardin-Simmons University, wrote the second edition ofA The Editor in Chief: A Management Guide for Magazine Editors (Iowa State University Press). |
 | Eric Salzman (music), Ithaca College, wrote the fourth edition of Twentieth Century Music: An Introduction (Prentice Hall). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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Political marketing journal launched| CHICAGO, Illinois, January 22, 2003 -- A new scholarly serial, the Journal of Political Marketing, debuted from Howarth Press. The editor, Bruce Newman of DePaul Univerity, sees the journal as a core for a new genre of college courses in political marketing. Newman also is editing a forthcoming Haworth series of books on the subject. The first title is expected in 2004. |
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Review the out-of-print provision| WINONA,
Minnesota, January 21, 2003 -- Authors need to review the out-of-print provisions in their contracts to determine whether the publisher, to the author's disadvantage, can use new print-on-demand technology to maintain a book on a backlist forever and ever, the Society of Academic Authors advised in a Contract Alert. "POD technology permits a publisher to store a book digitally and print one copy at a time, which means it will never go out of print," said SA2 founder John Vivian. Most author-publisher contracts, which predate this technology, allow an author to reclaim the rights to a book when it no longer remained in inventory. "That definition of out-of-print has been eclipsed by the technology. But to our knowledge at SA2, no publisher has adjusted the out-of-print contract provision," Vivian said. "The provision means a publisher could sit on a work that it fails to market, denying the author the opportunity to seek another publisher." To acknowledge the realities of the new technology and to be fair for authors, the Society of Academic Authors recommends that the widely used current out-of-print provisions be updated to permit an author to reclaim rights to a book when sales diminish to an agreed-upon number. Vivian invited SA2 members to suggest other approaches. "Together we authors need to invent solutions," he said. |
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WHAT
TO DO
Review new and
also updated contracts carefully.
Insist that the out-of-print provision be revised to reflect the reality of new POD technology.
Keep SA2 up-to-date on your progress on this issue:
SA2 |
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Journal publishers fulfill Faxon gap| NEW YORK, January 21, 2003 -- Three major journal publishers are shipping journals directly to academic and medical libraries whose subscriptions were interrupted with the collapse of Faxon Library Services. Blackwell, Elsevier and Wiley arre unsure how long they will need to continue to deliver their journals without compensatuion to subscribers. Faxon, a leading library subscription agency, also doing business as RoweCom, reportedly held almost $100 million in subscription fees when it suddenly laid everybody off and ceased operations in late December. Faxon's parent company, Divine Inc., has engaged the Chicago bankruptcy firm DSI to deal with former clients. |
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Reed launches new book unit| NEW YORK, January 21, 2003 -- A trade journal subsidiary of Reed Elsevier, Reed Business Information, launched a book unit to publish titles for the institutional, school, business and professional markets. The unit, RBI Press, plans 12 to 18 titles a year beginning this fall. | REED
BUSINESS
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | Peter Coles (astrophysics), University of Nottingham, and Francesco Lucchin (astrophysics), University of Padova, wrote the second edition of Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure (Wiley). |
| Rebecca Hensley, chief executive and president of CCH, resigned to spend time with her family. Gene Landoe, chief executive at CCH Legal Information Services, was named interim chief to succeed Hensley while a search is conducted. |
 | Anthony Janson (art), Ringling Museum of Art, wrote the sixth edition of Basic History of Art with History of Art Image (Prentice Hall). |
 | Zachary S. Schiffman (history), Northeastern Illinois University, wrote Humanism and the Renaissance (Houghton Mifflin). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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EDC sees home-sales growth| NEW YORK, January 21, 2003 -- Educational Development Corporation, bouyed by the growth of its home-party sales structure, will grow revenues 6 percent in 2003 and more in 2004, said Randall White, company chair. By 2008, he said, revenes will quadruple from the current $25 million. Much of the growth, he said, will come from its growing network of home-based agents who invite friends and neighbors over for sales pitches. |
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China wants national psych text| VANCOUVER, British Columbia, January 20, 2003 -- Vancouver-based China Ventures won Chinese government approval to develop a psychology textbook for training K-12 teachers throughout the nation. The Ministry of Education in Beijing expects more than 10 million copies will go into use. Printing will be in China. In total, Chinese Ventures said, the Chinese textbook market is C$4 billion a year. | |
Facts on File buys Ferguson| CHICAGO, Illinois, January 20, 2003 -- Career education publisher Ferguson, which has 135 active titles, was acquired by Facts on File. Terms were not announced. Facts on File will shift its own career education titles to the Ferguson imprint. |
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Prometheus adds print-on-demand unit| AMHERST, New York, January 20, 2003 -- Prometheus Press, which has a 2,000-title backlist, created a print-on-demand division that will produce as few as one title at a time to keep scholarly works available. "None of our titles will go out of print," said Vice President Jon Kurtz. Prometheus issues about 120 titles a year, a mix of scholarly and high-end trade books. |
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Thomson's Delmar buys Frontline| SOMERVILLE, Massachusetts, January 19, 2003 -- Healthcare publisher Frontline was purchased by the Delmar unit of educational publisher Thomson Learning. Terms were not announced. Frontline's newsletters and books will be folded into the Delmar nursing and allied health product line. | |
Columbia bids adieu to Fathom.com| NEW YORK, January 19, 2003 -- Columbia University's $55 million foray into online courses, Fathom.com, attracted 65,000 students in its first two years -- but not enough. Columbia is shutting down the initiative April 1. Fathom.com was conceived as a for-profit consortium with content from Cambridge University Press, the London School of Economics and the New York Public Library. Two-thousand courses were created. |
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | Reebee Garofalo (music), University of Massachusetts, Boston, wrote the second edition of Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the USA (Prentice Hall). |
 | Patrick Guilfoile (biology), Bemidji State University, wrote Exercises for the Molecular Biology Laboratory (Morton). |
 | Donald L. Niewyk (history), Southern Methodist University, wrote the third edition of The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (Houghton Mifflin). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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The breakdown over the Sonny Bono extensionWASHINGTON, January 18, 2003 -- Here is how the justices lined up in deciding the Eldred v. Ashcroft copyright duration case:Majority opinion: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Concurring: Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Clarence Thomas.
Separate dissents: Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens. |
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Study: Feds made 545 library forays| URBANA, Illinois, January 18, 2003 -- Federal agents have made 545 visits to libraries under the USA Patriot Act to examine the borrowing and Internet-surfing records of patrons, according to a study by Library Research Center at the University of Illinois. The visits were in the first year after the Sept. 9, 2001, attacks. The U.S. Justice Department has declined to say how much it has used the provisions of the post-9/11 law to get into library and bookstore records, which prompted the study. When asked to voluntarily forfeit patrons' records, roughly half the librarians cooperated with investigators without demanding a subpoena or court order, the study found. Sixty percent of the librarians who responded said they believed the gag order precluding them from publicizing visits from investigators was an abridgement of their First Amendment rights. |
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Publishers praise Supreme Court on Bono law| WASHINGTON, January 16, 2003 -- The Association of American Publishers said its 300 member organizations never doubted the authority of Congress to extend copyright durations under the 1998 Bono Act. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Congressional authority in a decision January 15, the association noted that it had neither supported nor opposed the Bono extensions because of member disagreements over the desirability of term extension as a matter of public policy, but added that it never doubted that the extension was a "valid exercise" of legislative power as a matter of constitutional law. In a news release, AAP said: "While book publishers appreciate the Court's rejection of arguments challenging the broad authority of Congress to effectuate sound copyright protection through appropriate legislation, we are particularly gratified that the Court strongly reaffirmed its long-standing view that, far from threatening First Amendment rights and values, the statutory copyright scheme 'contains built-in First Amendment accommodations' and serves to 'promote the creation and publication of free expression.'" |
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ProQuest acquires BigChalk| ANN ARBOR, Michigan, Janaury 16, 2003 -- ProQuest, a provider of information and content to the library, education and other business, bought BigChalk, a firm that creates reference databases. BigChalk offers standard-based tools for teachers for preparing lesson plans. | |
| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | Benson George Cooke (counseling), George Mason University, wrote Personal Empowerment for People of Color: Keys to Success in Higher Education (Kendall-Hunt). |
 | John G. Pedley (art), University of Michigan, wrote the third edition of Greek Art and Archaeology (Prentice Hall). |
 | Peter Bernath (chemistry and physics), University of Waterloo, Roy McWeeny (physics and chemistry), University of Pisa, and Stephen Wilson (computational chemistry and molecular physics), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, edited Handbook of Molecular Physics and Quantum Chemistry (Wiley). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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McGraw adds textbook web tools| NEW YORK, January 16, 2003 -- Textbook publisher McGraw-Hill will use the eCollege platform to deliver book-related content to help college instructors build online courses, the company announced. "This agreement reflects our ongoing mission to provide technical solutions to enhance learning and teaching," said Ed Stanford, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Through the eCollege AU+ platform, educators will have access to more than 200 online McGraw supplements, Stanford said. McGraw already offers online supplements through its custom course PageOut web site development tool; the GradeSummit diagnostic exam preparation tool; and the web-based Aleks artificial intelligence tutor. |
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Houghton looks to acquisitions, internal growth| BOSTON, Massachusetts, January 16, 2003 -- The new owners of Houghton Mifflin are committed to internal growth and acquisitions to expand the company, said chief executive Hans Gieskes. In an interview with the trade journal Publishers Weekly, Gieskes denied persistent rumors that Thomas Lee Partners and Bain Capital are intent on flipping their new investment for a quick profit. Gieskes joined Houghton as chief executive over the summer, just before the French conglomerate Vivendi imploded and rushed to sell the company to pay make its debt installments. Since the Lee-Bain purchase, there have been rumors that the trade and reference division would go on the block. "This is a non-issue that I would like to put to bed," Gieskes said. The trade division generates US$100 million in sales -- far less than Houghton's crown jewels, the US$800 million el-hi division and the US$200 million college division. | 
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MIFFLIN |
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | Arnie Bianco (education) Chapman University, wrote One-Minute Discipline: Classroom Management Strategies That Work (Wiley). |
 | Tricia S. Jones (psychology), Temple University, and Randy Compton, executive director, School Mediation Center, Boulder, Colorado, edited Kids Working It Out: Stories and Strategies for Making Peace in Our Schools (Jossey-Bass). |
 | Henry M. Sayre (art), Oregon State University-Cascades Campus wrote the fourth edition of A World of Art (Prentice Hall). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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Pearson donates to Florida book drive| LONDON, January 16, 2003 -- Textbook publisher Pearson Education donated 7,000 books and instructional materials to the Seasons Reading Program, a non-profit community-based Florida effort to promote reading. The gift, whose value Pearson pegged at $60,000, puts the program within easy reach of its 10,000-book goal. The books will be distributed byBoys and Girls Clubs. |
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Houghton sets up school funding siteBOSTON, Massachusetts, January 16, 2003 -- School-book publisher Houghton Mifflin launched a web site with information about the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. The site, designed for educators, legislators and parents, features articles on funding, assessment and teacher training developments. There will be weekly columns on improving student reading skills, as well as resources and links related to the No Child Left Behind requirements and guidelines, Houghton said.
Contact: Houghton site |
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