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NEWS
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March 13, 2003 -- No. 164 |
UNC Library turns publisher for books with university ties
CHAPEL HILL -- Quietly and successfully, the Academic Affairs Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has gone into publishing.
Its first venture, "Country Music Sources: A Biblio-Discography of Commercially Recorded Traditional Music," has had a second printing. The Library of Congress held a reception last November to honor the book, and in April, it will be the focus of a conference at UNC’s Wilson Library.
On Thursday (March 20), the library’s second book will be the star of a reception for an exhibit, in UNC’s Wilson Library, about William Chambers Coker, the university’s first botanist. At the 5 p.m. event, author Mary Coker Joslin, Coker’s niece, will sign copies of her new title, "William Chambers Coker: Passionate Botanist," published by the library with the North Carolina Botanical Garden.
And just wait until their third book hits. North Carolina author and journalist Howard Covington Jr.’s "Favored by Fortune: The Hills of Durham," due in late 2003 or early 2004, will trace the lives of Triangle leaders and benefactors John Sprunt Hill, George Watts Hill Sr. and George Watts Hill Jr. – three generations that figured mightily in local history and that of the university.
None of this has the likes of Random House, or locally, the UNC Press, shaking in their boots. The library doesn’t have a competitive bone on its bookshelves.
"From time to time, because of the financial pressures on the press, there are books worthy of publication that they simply can’t publish," said Dr. Joe Hewitt, university librarian and associate provost for university libraries. "These books need a respectable imprint and do not need to have to be subsidized by the author. They are books that fall through the cracks between scholarly, university types of publishing and commercial publishing. The Coker book, I think, is a good example of the kind of book we intend to publish."
A policy on the "limited" publishing program says the library will consider works that:
"Biographies of living persons, memoirs, fiction, drama and poetry will not be considered for publication," the policy says. The library has assembled an editorial board that reviews candidate works. The board chooses appropriate readers to review manuscripts and recommend whether the library should publish them. Hewitt, with the review board, makes the final decisions.
The program is underwritten by an unrestricted library endowment and expected to become self-supporting as its books continue to sell. The library pooled resources with the N.C. Botanical Garden Foundation to publish the work by Joslin, a retired French teacher and former member of the UNC Board of Visitors. The tome includes striking color photos of the arboretum and botanical drawings by Sandra Brooks-Mathers of the garden.
The UNC Press distributed the library’s first book, "Country Music Sources," which was published last summer. A bibliography of thousands of recordings, tracing them to their earliest appearances in print and on record, the book is the type of reference guide that has a very small market -- among libraries, scholars and collectors.
David Perry, editor in chief of the press, said that he and his staff researched similar projects by other presses. They were convinced that 500 copies would last the book its lifetime; they printed accordingly. But within six months, "Country Music Sources" was into its second printing of 500 – a significant performance for such a title, Perry said.
Cooperation between the press and the library has increased in the last 10 to 15 years, Perry said. Publishing is just the latest wave. "We can’t publish everything that needs to be published about this campus," he said. "We welcome what they’re doing. They have helped us a great deal, and we complement each other in so many ways."
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Contact: Dr. Joe Hewitt, 919-962-1301