Are You Ready for the Future

Are there any other changes you have made?
Beck: We have streamlined in all areas and consistently try to add new personnel as we continue to grow.

Tina Weiner is publishing director at Yale University Press (www.Yale.edu/yup) in New Haven, Conn. The press was formally made a department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous. It has published more than 7,000 titles, including scholarly books on history, literature, economics and language, and books of poetry and even children’s books, during 95 years of operation. Yale was one of the forerunners of electronic publishing, as one of the first university presses to publish a multimedia CD-ROM, “Perseus.”

What challenges do you foresee in the publishing industry?
Weiner: The amount of time readers spend surfing on the Web and reading online versus reading in print form.

What challenges do you anticipate in your segment of the book industry?
Weiner: [The] impact of the used-book market on course books and declining sales to libraries.

What do you foresee impacting academic publishers in the years beyond 2006?
Weiner: More availability of information online instead of in print form.

What are some of your strategies for 2006 to make the year profitable?
Weiner: Selling more bulks through creative promotion, greater use of radio interviews and electronic outreach, and seeking out nontraditional sales outlets.

What are some of the changes that you made at your organization to plan for the future?
Weiner: [We have] increased [our] staff in [our] publicity and electronic marketing departments.

Jim Jordan is president and director of Columbia University Press (www.Columbia.edu/cu/cup) in New York. It is a nonprofit corporation separate from Columbia University, although it is closely associated. It is the only university press to publish music, and it distributes books on behalf of other organizations and publishers. It ventured into electronic publishing in 1990, when The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia went online on the Columbia University network. Currently, it publishes a variety of CD-ROMs. Its first four publications online are “Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO),” “The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry Online,” “Earthscape” and “The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online.”