University Press Roundup

Welcome to our weekly roundup of the best posts from the blogs of academic publishers! As always, if you particularly enjoy something or think that we missed an important post, please let us know in the comments.

Many publishing professionals are in Frankfurt this week for the Frankfurt Book Fair. Many less fortunate publishing professionals are going to the office as usual. For those of us who weren’t able to get to Germany for the fair, Fifteeneightyfour, the blog of Cambridge University Press has an excellent series of blog posts on the book fair so you can keep up to date on all the action.

The government shutdown continues, and so do the posts about the National Park System and how it’s been effected by the stalemate in Washington. This week, Robert B. Keiter, writing at Island Press Field Notes, looks at our national parks and wonders what it is about them that provokes so much media scrutiny.

We tend to look at modern vegetarianism as a new phenomenon. However, at the UNC Press Blog, Adam D. Shprintzen has a guest post explaining that vegetarianism has been a social reform issue throughout the history of the United States, and looking in particular at the history of “faux meats.”

China’s economy is constantly growing and likely to surpass that of the US at some point in the next century. However, as John Knight argues in a post at the OUPblog, sheer size is not why China’s economy is interesting. Instead, he points to five other factors, highlighting challenges overcome and challenges yet to be faced, that make China’s economy fascinating.

The JHU Press Blog had a number of thought-provoking posts this week (notably including a piece by Charles J. Rzepka on Elmore Leonard), but Peter L. Beilenson’s post “Explaining the Affordable Care Act in 800 Worlds” is particularly topical, as debates about Obamacare continue to rage.

At the University of Minnesota Press Blog, UMP director Doug Armato has posted the text of a talk he gave at “The Future of Academic Scholarship and Publishing” conference on Sept. 19, 2013, at Indiana University. In his speech, Armato argues that the “revolution in scholarly communication” is actually a chance to reevaluate where all the parts of scholarly publishing fit together:

Though we have become accustomed to thinking of ourselves as involved in, or confronted by, a revolution in scholarly communication, I see this moment as more akin to the emergence of a new cosmology of scholarly communication—a time not so much of economic reallocation or technological transformation (though both of those are surely forces) as much as a dramatic expansion and realignment of the megacosm and where all of us—scholars, students, librarians, publishers, tenure and promotion committees, administrators—locate ourselves in it.

At North Philly Notes, the blog of Temple University Press, Elaine Bell Kaplan explains the “photovoice methodology” she uses in her new book. By allowing inner-city black and Latino children to chronicle the challenges they face with photography, she hopes to help them change societal stereotypes.

In 1980, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay collapsed when hit by a ship, a tragedy that was overshadowed by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens just nine days later. At the Florida Bookshelf, Bill DeYoung, author of a new book about the collapse of the bridge, discusses the event and his process in researching it.

Finally, we’ll wrap things up with a post from the (newly and stylishly redesigned!) Yale Press blog, Yale Books Unbound. Italian artist Giuseppe Penone’s exhibition in Madison Square Park here in NYC just opened, and in honor of the occasion, Yale Books Unbound has an excerpt from an interview with Penone.

Thanks again for reading this week’s roundup! Have a great weekend, and leave any thoughts in the comments!