From a hit book about The Ridges to series of books about Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, the Ohio University Press has spent the last 50 years publishing books to satisfy any kind of reader.
Ohio University Press will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary with an open house meet and greet at 4 p.m. Friday in the Ohio University Press offices, 215 Columbus Rd., the culminating event for its week-long celebration.
The publisher was founded by former OU president Vernon Alden in 1964, mimicking other universities that had presses throughout the country, including his alma mater, the Harvard Business School.
After publishing on its own for several years, The Ohio University Press established an agreement with Swallow Press in 1979 to allow the OU publisher to distribute and reissue its backlist of books, and eventually went on to purchase Swallow in 2008.
The Presses, which have a staff of nine full-time employees, publish between 40 and 50 books a year, and to date has published nearly 1,500 titles, with 1,053 still active. All the editing is done in-house with books published for both popular and academic audiences.
“That is one of the things that Ohio University Presses is proud of,” said Jeff Kallet, acting sales and marketing manager of Ohio University Press.
While the editing is done locally, production of books is hired out to printers worldwide.
Gillian Berchowitz is the current director of the non-profit press, which generates nearly $1 million in annual sales.
Local books have included Soulful Bobcats, a collection of autobiographical pieces about being enrolled at OU as an African-American student in the 1950s, Asylum on the Hill, a history of the Athens Lunatic Asylum, and A Conversation about Ohio University and The Presidency, 1975-1994, which is an edited transcript of interviews recorded by Charles Ping and professor emeritus Sam Crowl about Ping’s presidency and the advances he made with OU.
Along with publishing many books about Ohio, Appalachia and the Midwest, the press is a leading publisher in the area of African Studies, which Kallet attributes to Berchowitz’s interest in the area.
While most of the authors aren’t affiliated with OU, there are a handful of writers from the Athens area.
John Thorndike published his fourth book, The Last of His Mind: A Year in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s, with Swallow Press in 2009. It was named A Best Book of 2009 by the Washington Post. The memoir chronicles the year Thorndike spent with his dad, caring for him while he suffering from Alzheimer’s.
“I can’t tell you what a difference it was than working with a prestigious New York firm,” said Thorndike, who had published his previous books through other firms. “(Ohio University Press and Swallow Press) would just put so much more of a personal effort into it.”
Great acclaim for the publishing house can be found all over the Athens and OU community.
“Through the excellence of its publications, the press testifies to Ohio University’s academic distinction and supports our mission of teaching, research and service,” said President Roderick McDavis in a press release.
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