Illinois Press Book Blog

Today the Marketing Department says goodbye to two long term staff members. Assistant Marketing Director Barbara Horne retires after 30 years at the U of I and Marketing Designer Nancy Lopeman is moving to another department within the University. We will also miss Acquisitions Assistant Marla Osterbur who is making a similar transition.

Best wishes in your new destinations beyond the railroad tracks and chiller plants.

The Chronicle covers the ways in which academic e-mail lists like H-Net and others have changed to accommodate new directions in online communications. Web 2.0 keeps marching on.

But now collaborating online with colleagues is so accepted that scholars are trying new tools that are easier to use and, well, a little more exciting. When was the last time someone enthusiastically recommended a new e-mail list to you?

Steven Ashby and C. J. Hawking, authors of the new book Staley: The Fight for a New American Labor Movement, will be interviewed July 1st, 1:05-2:00 PM (Central), on Urbana’s NPR affiliate WILL AM-580.

The director of  University of Akron Press has some advice for university presses in this morning’s Inside Higher Ed.

University presses must become part of the new information infrastructure of the university. Presses must partner with departments, centers, and scholars to publish groundbreaking materials. University presses need to be good listeners. The university press editorial board, if made up of a diverse cross-section of faculty members, is a way to initiate this process. At board meetings, interactions have led to the discovery of programs that are being run independently at various schools that could be made much more vital through cooperative efforts.

OK, you can follow the University of Illinois Press on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/illinoispress

Galleycat covers the story of a book review, an unhappy author, and the author’s quest to fight the power.

The International Alliance for Women in Music recently recognized Susan Thomas, author of Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havana’s Lyric Stage, with the Pauline Alderman Award for Outstanding Scholarship on Women in Music.

From IAWM’s press release:

“In this model study, Thomas examines…a popular music theatre genre in Havana in the 1920s and 1930s as the response of composers, librettists, and impresarios to increasingly female audiences and to such general forces as urbanization and nationalism. Zarzuela conventions that develop during the early twentieth century continue at least until the 1959 revolution and reveal enduring class, racial, and sexual stereotypes, conflicts, and efforts toward resolution. The book is a strong contribution to music theatre scholarship, gender studies and Cuban history.”

I’ve been monitoring tweets with the phrase “university press” and saw one pop up that said:

Daughter had great interview for design job with University Press (name redacted). Keeping my fingers crossed!

Because the person who hired me here now works at University Press (name redacted), I forwarded the person the general content of the tweet. I’m not sure how it will all turn out but I am sure that I wouldn’t want my parents tweeting about my job interview, before I was offered the job.

Keep it private, people.

Stephane Dunn, author of “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films, remembers Michael at NewBlackMan.

I moved beyond posters on the walls and accepted that he was a star flung too far for me to marry – though I hung on to the prayer that at least we’d meet. He was still my Michael and I stood applauding telling him to go on with his bad self as he moon-walked onto MTV and further into pop performance history.

With state and university budget concerns I’ve been looking for efficient ways to lower the publicity budget. Cutting review copies of backlist titles sent overseas to near zero was an easy place to start. Earlier this week I received a review copy request from a Belgium based journal that publishes every five years for a book published in 2005.  The journal published its last issue in early 2009 so the prospective review would run nearly ten years after the book’s publication date.

I am sorry that I am unable to fulfill your request.