Publishing Today Research Articles

The Architectural History Foundation: Research and Publishing Today

The Architectural History Foundation: Research and Publishing Today

Pages from the desktop: Desktop publishing today

Recent Trailing Edge articles have discussed typefaces and graphics. This column discusses putting it all together: economical desktop publishing. There has never been a better time for libraries to become desktop publishers, and some will find that doing so requires no new software or hardware. The author discusses changes that have made desktop publishing such an appealing and reasonably‐priced proposition in 1994 and some of your options for getting started and moving on. He brings the typeface discussion up to date with a startling recent development and defines the difference between true desktop publishing and the spare‐no‐expense field that the “desktop publishing” magazines cover. A sidebar notes a series of desktop publishing workshops that the author is offering as part of LITA's regional institutes program. Finally, the author adds notes on the personal computing literature for January to March 1994, now including some Macintosh magazines and, soon, CD‐ROM/multimedia publications.

Accessing electronic publications in complex LAN environments: by Richard W. Boss. Library Technology Reports, Vol. 28, no. 3, 1992, p. 275–391 $45 (paper). (Avail. from Library Technology Reports, ALA, Chicago.)

The use of CD-ROM in libraries is new well established. What is needed is a networking concept. Section 1 discusses electronic publishing today. Section 2 examines LANs. Section 3 discusses CD-LANs. Section 4 discusses departmental or office LANs (the initial LAN effort for most libraries) and organization wide LANs (the type of LAN usually undertaken by a library's parent organiztion). Sections discusses access options for electronic publications. Section 6 discusses inter networking and section 7 discusses implementation and operation of LANs. Appendix A is a Open System Interconnection (OSI). Reference Model. Appendix B is a glossary of terms, and Appendix C is a bibliography

Surviving, Multiculturally, in Hard Times

While demographic changes point to the need for more multicultural children's books, the recent recession threatens to destroy the progress that has been made in this area. The threat comes from three sources-the decline in school and library purchasing power. the loss of library professionals trained to evaluate and to select multicultural books, and the contraction of mainstream presses. The example of the early 1980's, when a recession and cutbacks in Federal programs sharply reduced the number and variety of multicultural titles, does not bode well for multicultural publishing today; however, demographic changes, the whole language movement, and the existence of mandated multicultural curricula present a more hopeful picture, as does the emergence of alternative presses. Because of the long lead time required in publishing books, the consequences of the recession are likely to endure through the middle of the 1990's. and librarians must be proactive in ensuring the continued supply of multicultural books for children and young adults.

What Is at Stake in Lesbian and Gay Publishing Today: The Bill Whitehead Memorial Award Ceremony-1990 (ABA-Las Vegas)

What Is at Stake in Lesbian and Gay Publishing Today: The Bill Whitehead Memorial Award Ceremony-1990 (ABA-Las Vegas)

Thirty Years of Growth in the Literature of Interior Design

The literature of interior design has come to occupy a substantial portion of art book publishing today. A survey of key literature produced since 1961 amply demonstrates the intellectual and social development of interior design from its origins as an aspect of the applied arts, rooted in architectural practice, to its present status as an interconnected but independent discipline. The subsequent thirty years have seen considerable changes in published books on interior design. In particular, newer writings on interior design and decoration represent a sharply defined balance between professional and popular interests. Post-1961 books reflect aspects of design history in the making, and they themselves serve as forms of cultural interpretation. When Gertrude Lackshewitz's bibliography Interior Design and Decoration was published by the New York Public Library in 1961, it was the first reference tool to survey the major literature of the field on a comprehensive basis.1 This publication cited a growing number of reference books, histories, period surveys, and works on specific interior design components. Interior Design and Decoration has thus become a watershed publication, as well as a starting point for further bibliographical investigation. Post-war interior design practices, along with increased disposable income and consumerism, fostered the creation of more publications than ever before. Scholarly design studies developed in earnest throughout the i960s, and publishing on interiors boomed in response to varied professional and general demands.2 Since 1961, standards have been drawn up, educational courses have been plotted, and a proliferation of organizations and associations has been created to advance interior design as a profession. The 1991 Encyclopedia of Associations now lists seventy-four international interior design groups.3 Books of the past thirty years show the rapid evolution of interior design enquiry into two separate contexts useful either for professionals or amateurs. A common thread can be found even within this dichotomy: most authors acknowledge and confront issues related to interior design's role as a cultural force.4 As the literature has grown markedly, the quality of most books' texts has risen to meet the expanding nature of design studies. The most substantial increase in books on interior design and decoration occurred during the i98os, including many picture book and glossy periodical productions, triggered by the rampant consumerism of that decade. The influx of these books firmly established eclecticism as an enduring aspect of industrial and popular taste. A review of significant titles reveals that interior design and decoration research is moving toward new and more sophisticated conclusions.

The New England Journal of Medicine as News Source

The New England Journal of Medicine is a primary global source of medical information published in English. Time, a frequent forum for the journal's research, considered the publication's articles so important and often controversial that hardly a week goes by without some mention of the magazine in the press.1 Only the Journal of the American Medical Association, Science and Great Britain's Lancet, the British Medical Journal and Nature rival of the 177-year-old publication. Nelkin viewed journals such as the NEJM and Science as competitively eager to maintain their status through skillful use of the press.2 Wade saw the NEJM and JAMA competing for public attention as leading oracles of new advances in medical research.3 The Journal has been published under the aegis of the Massachusetts Medical Society since 1921. Arnold S. Relman, the journal's editor, reported paid circulation at more than 225,000 with nearly 50,000 subscribers outside the United States in 125 countries.4 News media begin receiving advance copies of the weekly journal on Monday, customarily respecting the publication's Thursday release date. The publication sends no advance press releases. Some stories from the Journal occasionally appear in Friday or weekend editions of newspapers, but more typically, North American newspaper readers learn of medical research developments in their Thursday papers or from Wednesday evening radio and television news programs. Traditional news values, rather than precise reporting on scientific information, may be at work in the reporting of medical news. Culbertson and Stempel found no relationship between medical topics that readers considered important and the medical news editors gave prominent play in the newspapers.5 O'Keefe found that only 24 percent of the physicians questioned in a survey said medical information they obtained from the mass media was of any importance to them.6 Johnson found that newspaper editors judge science news stories differently than either scientists or readers, favoring excitement and color over significance as news values.7 From an editor's point of view, the Journal may be an ideal source of medical news because the publication often reflects the conflict and controversy within the medical profession. The publication sometimes echoes these debates, and the Journal's editors stimulate attention by soliciting opposing viewpoints. Because the JournaPs editors have so much authority as gatekeepers within the medical profession, it is not surprising that they and the Journal are themselves the source of controversy. Relman bars publication in the Journal of any research that has received substantial medical coverage in other forums. Journalists, naturally, find this a barrier to the timely reporting of medical news. The Journal's editors insist they must retain such controls in order to preserve the integrity of the research they publish.8 Nevertheless, errors do occur. For example, papers published in 1979 and 1981 by Dr. John Darsee, a cardiology researcher at Emory and Harvard, were retracted after data were proved fraudulent. The editors can show humility in their understanding of the publication's limitations. In a 1980 interview, then deputy editor Drummond Rennie thumbed through a 1959 volume of the Journal and said: This was the finest medical research of its time, and most of it has already been proved wrong. The best we can say about today's Journal is that it's publishing today's lies, and we hope next year's are a little better.9 At the same time the editors can be quick to defend their intellectual turf. Harry Schwartz, writer-in-residence of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, charged that Relman had great power to determine what socio-economic viewpoints will be presented in the Journal's pages, and brought a list of prejudices, including opposition to for-profit hospital chains, to his editorial task. …

Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of Book Publishing in America

Between Covers goes behind the famous imprints to tell the often surprising story of the men and women who have made up more than two centuries of American book publishing. The only comprehensive, single-volume history of the profession, it is a book rich in life and color, in anecdote and biography. John Tebbel offers fascinating portraits of the founders of the great houses--the Harper brothers, George Palmer Putnam, the Scribners, Henry Oscar Houghton, among them--as well as of the figures who led the industry after the First World War--Alfred A. Knopf, Horace Liveright, Bennett Cerf, Stanley Rinehart, Alfred Harcourt, and many others. Tebbel traces the evolution of the industry through a fascinating series of developments: the astonishing rise of paperbacks before the Civil War, book selling through subscription, the great fiction boom of the 1890s, bouts with censorship, the tremendous growth of specialized publishing, and the escalating role of advertising, promotion, and publicity. The closing pages deal with the explosion in mass market publishing of the postwar era and the entry of conglomerates, and examine the state of publishing today. Based on the author's monumental four-volume History of Book Publishing in the United States, Between Covers will be of enormous appeal to everyone who loves books and reading.

Developing a self-training manual*

In much of database publishing today self-training documentation is almost as important as the information itself. Documentation increases revenues, and decreases the costs of customer service and training. The leverage in favor of self-training documentation increases as customer bases increase. T his will not always be the case. In five years or so online helps and search procedures should be simplified enough that documentation plays a minor role. Producing effective documentation requires careful examination of options and use of a process in which drafts are written, tested on potential users, revised and tested again until the process yields insignificant improvements. The elements of superior documentation are: few words, ample use of illustrations, and sections covering (1) getting started, (2) tutorials with examples, (3) reference, (4) advanced features, (5) a reference card, (6) an index, and (7) a table of contents.

Some reflections on medical book publishing today

Books1 October 1965Some reflections on medical book publishing todayR. KENNETH BUSSYR. KENNETH BUSSYSearch for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-63-4-724 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail ExcerptIt is difficult to state exactly how many publishers of medical books there are in the United States, for a considerable number of publishers in other fields occasionally take a flyer and publish a medical book. The Association of American Medical Book Publishers, a loose trade organization, has 17 members.* A dozen other publishers, perhaps more, though nonmembers of the AAMBP publish to a greater or lesser extent in medicine.The corporate organization of these publishers falls into one of two categories. They are either divisions or departments of a trade (general) publisher (such as The Blakiston Division of McGraw-Hill),... This content is PDF only. To continue reading please click on the PDF icon. Author, Article, and Disclosure InformationAffiliations: Philadelphia, Pa.Requests for reprints should be addressed to R. Kenneth Bussy, Lea & Febiger, 600 Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pa. 19106.*Appleton Century Crofts Inc., Butterworth Inc., F. A. Davis Co., Grune & Stratton Inc., Hoeber Medical Div., Harper & Row, Inc., Lange Medical Publications, Lea & Febiger, J. B. Lippincott Co., Little, Brown & Co., MacMillan Co., McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., The C. V. Mosby Co., Oxford University Press, Inc., The Williams & Wilkins Co., Year Book Medical Publishers, Inc. PreviousarticleNextarticle Advertisement FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Metrics 1 October 1965Volume 63, Issue 4Page: 724-726KeywordsFalls Issue Published: 1 October 1965 PDF downloadLoading ...