From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2012 18:18:33 +0100

Sandy

I think you will find that most learned society publishers have a
similar publications committee which of course reflects the community
they serve rather than a single university. The majority of learned
societies that publish (I think I am right in saying) do so in
partnership with a larger publisher often a commercial publisher. That
commercial publisher is responsible as a publisher for books and
journals that have the same level of quality control. Of course as
someone who has worked much of my life for a commercial publisher I
would argue that the quality controls I used and which were demanded
of me by a commercial organisation working through an editorial
committee or some such were just as rigorous as those which involved
my getting agreement from the Delegates of OUP. In both cases I
usually had control over the referees/reviewers I went to. I certainly
would not give any special preference for any reviewers from a
particular university or society and was thus able to get an
international view and avoid blackballs resulting from academic
rivalries or preferences of distinguished people for their colleagues
or former students.

Anthony

*****************
From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2012 10:37:08 -0500

No commercial publisher has a faculty editorial board that is given
the responsibility of reviewing readers' reports and approving
publication of every book proposed by the publishing staff. That is
what I meant by "quality control," Rick, and it is indeed unique to
university presses and is a requirement of their membership in the
AAUP.

Sandy Thatcher


At 2:48 AM -0400 7/4/12, LIBLICENSE wrote:

From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 15:46:32 +0000

All
university presses are mandated to have quality control procedures in
place for their operations. That is what makes them university
presses.


Er, no. What makes them university presses is the fact that they're owned
and run by universities and call themselves university presses. If having
"quality control procedures in place for their operations" made a
publisher a university press, then by that definition most (if not all)
trade publishers would be university presses.

--
Rick Anderson
Acting Dean, J. Willard Marriott Library
University of Utah
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