Last modified: Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Annual IU Press Friends Drive is under way
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 1, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University Press has launched its 2011 Friends Drive, seeking donations that will enable the press to keep pace with changing technology and take full advantage of new opportunities to publish the best possible works in a manner consistent with IU traditions.
The annual fund drive, which continues through Dec. 31, is for the first time being supported by corporate sponsors -- French Lick Resort and FARMbloomington restaurant -- enabling IU Press to offer generous thank-you gifts to contributors.
"University presses, as nonprofit organizations, publish important scholarship and works of high quality and cultural value both for the academy and the general public, but they are far from bestsellers. Most often they do not recover their costs," said Janet Rabinowitch, director of IU Press.
Adding to their current challenges, IU Press and other members of the American Association of University Presses have embraced the need to publish and distribute scholarship digitally, globally, and sustainably -- a task that requires openness and flexibility, a willingness to work across departmental boundaries and effective collaboration with colleagues, parent institutions and external partners.
"Especially at this time of revolutionary change in the publishing industry and with a struggling economy, fundraising is necessary to help university presses advance their scholarly and cultural mission as they navigate the transition to digital publishing," Rabinowitch said. "While offering exciting opportunities for new directions in scholarly communication, digital publishing requires investment beyond most university presses' resources."
Gifts for IU Press donors include overnight or weekend stays at the famed West Baden Springs Hotel, gourmet gift baskets from FARMbloomington and a variety of IU Press titles, including books on Hoosier cooking, railroads, Rachel Peden's writings on farm life, and IU Press's new series of original Indiana fiction, Break Away Books, releasing four new titles next spring. See https://www.iupress.indiana.edu/friends for details and more information about the fund drive and how to contribute.
Founded in 1950, IU Press is recognized internationally as a leading academic publisher specializing in the humanities and social sciences. It is one of the largest public university presses, producing approximately 140 new books annually, publishing 29 journals and maintaining a backlist of 2,000 titles. Its major subject areas include African, African American, Asian, cultural, Jewish and Holocaust, Middle East, Russian and East European, and women's and gender studies; anthropology, film, history, bioethics, music, paleontology, philanthropy, philosophy, railroad history and religion.
IU Press Online offers electronic editions of books and themed journal issues. Also, IU Press will contribute about 700 titles to Books at JSTOR, a partnership by nonprofit institutions, university presses and independent publishers to make scholarly books available online.
For more information, see https://www.iupress.indiana.edu.
