With its recent national and international success, the Ohio University Press is looking to continue producing award-winning books given last year’s reorganization and a changing market.
Since 2008, books published by the OU Press have won 13 awards, including eight in 2010.
Most notably, Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine, by James McCann won best in the world in the African cuisine category at this year’s Gourmand World Cookbook Awards held in Paris.
“We’re up against the biggest presses out there. For instance Oxford, Cambridge and Princeton,” said Gillian Berchowitz, the press’ editorial director.
“It’s just very exciting when we commission that book, and we develop that book from the ground up and to have a book like that recognized internationally not only by scholars but practitioners is really very rewarding and exciting.”
Following September 2010, when associate English professor Kevin Haworth was named executive editor, the OU Press began a reorganization that involved three experts in the field visiting campus.
Although four awards have come following Haworth’s arrival, the accolades resulted from years of preparation before the reorganization, Berchowitz said.
“Books take a long time to develop,” Berchowitz said. “Our books that were developed two, three and four years ago went into production one, two and three years ago. These books are the fruits of what people at the press have been working on for quite a period of time.”
Although it will take one to two years before the new administration’s success can be measured, Haworth said the press continues to produce quality texts, despite OU’s budget cuts.
OU cut the press’ subsidy by 50 percent, or $180,000, for fiscal year 2011.
“We’ve continued to produce really great books, even the brand new books coming out this spring,” Haworth said. “Again, these are long in development, but still partly a product of how we’re doing things … I do think that absolutely we’re on the right track, and we’re doing the absolute best we can given the budget environment surrounding the university as a whole.”
With the arrival of e-books, dwindling library budgets and bookstore closings, Berchowitz said the OU Press will continue to focus on quality as it moves forward.
“We pride ourselves at the OU Press on first-rate, really quality copy editing and production values,” Berchowitz said. “I think it’s impressive a lot of publishers are really cutting corners, and I will tell you we have to as well, but we really do try to focus on keeping standards going forward even with a subsidy that is somewhat diminished and also the fact that the book market is changing.”
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