From: Mary Summerfield <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2016 16:14:39 +0000 Ann, Please define 'many' books. SPIE has the SPIE Press program which publishes about 25 books a year now and which we would expand if we thought we could do so in a manner that would allow the program to serve the community well and cover its costs. We publish our books ourselves but we have been approached by commercial houses about taking over our program--usually with a concept that we'd handle editorial and they'd do everything else and with some formula for sharing income and costs. Some societies have such relationships with publishers but we know other STM societies which have our model. I wouldn't want to guess about the balance between the two types of book publishing by STM societies. Since I worked in strategic planning at Columbia University's Library in the 1990s, my perception has been that STM researchers are less interested in books than journals as authors, as they have a great need to publish journal articles and don't find it appealing (or remunerative in all senses of the word) to spend the considerable time required to author books. They get little career credit for books as generally they pull together information on a field rather than reporting the findings of new research efforts. But there is demand for STM books by users--students, teachers, people outside of academia--who need such information. In 2014 we launched the SPIE Spotlights program (see http://spie.org/publications/books/spotlights) of concise books in hopes that researchers in optics and photonics would see the value of authoring such works. Mary Summerfield Publications Business Development Manager SPIE [log in to unmask] SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics http://SPIE.org