May 2008
- TAA announces Council election results
- Chilean Ministry of Education seeks history, social science textbook researchers
- TAA conducting royalty rate survey
- Busy TAA People: Richard Hull
- Publisher offering member discount on textbook authoring reference books
- TAA unveils new Texty, McGuffey logos
- Busy TAA Person Matt Stevens
- TAA members respond with letters to Flores
- TAA asks members to help stomp the comp in Florida
- TAA announces 2008 Texty, McGuffey Award winners
- Society for Scholarly Publishing to hold annual meeting May 28-30
- Scholarly publishing on the world wide web
TAA announces Council election results
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Mathematics author Don Collins has been elected TAA vice president/president-elect. Collins will serve a two-year term as vice president beginning July 1 and succeed Paul Siegel as TAA president in 2010. Siegel, who is TAA's current vice president/president-elect, will succeed John Wakefield as TAA president on July 1. Collins has served two terms on the TAA Council. Siegel, a professor of communication, has been a TAA member since 2000, and chaired the TAA Conference in San Antonio, Texas in 2001.
"I look forward to assuming my own new duties as President with more than a bit of wholly-justified modesty," said Siegel. "So many of the folks on Council and in our general membership have published so very widely, and here am I not yet eaten through the modest advance on the second editions of my only two textbooks. So when I make a point of listening to y'all before daring to speak, it will be not only to show respect, but because without your sage counsel I will likely get it wrong."
Paul Rosenzweig, who has served two terms on the TAA Council, has been elected TAA Treasurer. He will succeed Michael Sullivan. "I am pleased to be able to serve TAA as Treasurer, following in the well-trod footsteps of Michael Sullivan, who did the job so well, for so long," said Rosenzweig. "Along with the new members of Council, I believe we are ready to innovate more programs to better serve TAA's mission and membership."
Tara Gray, who has served on the TAA Council since 2002 when she chaired the TAA Conference in San Diego, was elected to serve a third term on the TAA Council. Gray is also the presenter of a TAA-sponsored workshop. "I am so happy to serve again on the Council for Text and Academic Authors," said Gray. "It is an important opportunity to serve."
Barbara Waxer, a freelance author and developmental editor of computer software and Internet intellectual property textbooks, and Fred Kleiner, the author of two art history and archeology textbooks, were elected to the Council for the first time. Kleiner will serve the remaining one-year term of Paul Rosenzweig, who will be moving up to the Treasurer position before the end of his three-year Council term.
"I am honored and delighted to have been elected and pledge to work hard with my fellow Council members to make TAA an even more important voice in educational and academic publishing and to enhance and expand the services TAA offers to all its members," said Kleiner. "I hope there will be a record turnout for the upcoming annual conference in Las Vegas and look forward to meeting many new colleagues there."
Waxer, who will serve a three-year term, said: "By definition, TAA is a dedicated group of professionals committed to communicating around their interests and passions. I am excited to create reflexive dialogs, address significant questions, and implement strategies that help us create a better product that benefits all interested parties."
All positions begin July 1.
Chilean Ministry of Education seeks history, social science textbook researchers
The Chilean Ministry of Education is seeking individuals who have done research in the effectiveness of history or social science textbooks to present a session at the International Seminar on History and Social Sciences Textbook, November 11-12, 2008 in Santiago, Chile.
The goal of the seminar is to share the broad array of ideas and perspectives and to open a discussion relating to teaching practices in history and social science textbooks from a national and international perspective.
Members interested in submitting an abstract should contact TAA President John Wakefield for further information at jwakefie@msn.com or (256) 765-4482 by May 1.
More information on the seminar:
International
Seminar on History and Social Sciences Textbook
November
11-12, 2008, Santiago, Chile
The successful "Seminario Internacional de Textos Escolares -SITE 2006" demonstrated that high-quality textbooks were one of the most important factors in making the learning experience more relevant to students and teachers.
The Ministry of Education through its Textbook Unit, has decided to continue with an international forum to maintain the dialogue on textbooks and to develop academic competences related to teachers'' knowledge in this area.
The International Seminar on History and Social Sciences textbook will take place in Santiago, Chile, on the 11th & 12th November 2008.
The goal of the Seminar is to share the broad array of ideas, perspectives and to open spaces for discussion relating to teaching practices within History and Social Sciences textbooks from a national and international approach.
Specific goals:
- To analyze textbooks and teaching material considering the instructional design and content treatment in the light of their contribution to understand new social phenomena. To motivate History and Social Studies professionals to develop competences in the improvement of both the quality and the access to textbooks. To provide a forum to explore responses across the broad range of disciplinary perspectives found within History and Social Studies, especially in the area of citizenship. To exchange experiences considering relevant issues such as: the recognition and respect for individual and collective identity, the need for social and cultural cohesion, the multiple perspectives on history and contemporary issues within their historical context. To establish and maintain a center of essential information on the expert organization and publications interested in the field of textbook improvement.
- To discuss new studies related to textbook improvement developed in different countries by professional groups.
Teachers, graduate students, publishers, university-based faculty of education researchers related to History, Geography or Social Sciences are invited to be part of this Seminar.
The Seminar welcomes contributions on the following topics:
- History and Social Sciences didactics in textbooks.New disciplinary approaches History, Geography and other Social Sciences, and its treatment in textbooks.Content analyses in History and Social Sciences textbooks.
- How the subject of citizenship is shown in textbooks.
TAA conducting royalty rate survey
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TAA is distributing a Royalty Rate Survey to its textbook author members to gather information that will provide them with a useful tool in negotiating new contracts and/or amending existing contracts.
The survey asks questions such as the author's name, and his or her publisher's name, discipline and level (college, high school, elementary); the main title of the book and edition; the units sold; royalty rates for domestic, foreign, and translations; number of authors and how royalties are split between them; and whether the rate was renegotiated and for what edition.
All author identifying information and that of their publisher or publishers will be held confidential. Other data will be aggregated, analyzed, and reported for the membership with no identifying information included.
"If knowledge is power, then the larger our response rate, the better armed TAA members will be when they go into future royalty rate negotiations," said TAA Executive Director Richard Hull.
The deadline for receipt of surveys is June 1. TAA plans to announce the results at the 2008 TAA Conference in Las Vegas, June 19-21. A copy of the report will be distributed to each person who fills out the survey. A copy of the survey will be included in the May issue of The Academic Author. Members can also fill it out the survey online: Click hereBusy TAA People: Richard Hull
TAA Executive Director Richard Hull published the second edition of Ethical Issues in the New Reproductive Technologies by Prometheus Books in 2005, as a revised, updated, and expanded version of the first edition, published in 1990 by Wadsworth. An electronic edition of the book, self-published by Hull, is available through his website, http://www.richard-t-hull.com.
Hull also published an article in Free Inquiry (vol 28, nos 2&3), entitled, "Can We Survive? The Changes Required to Deal Effectively With Global Warming," with co-authors Stephen Paley and George K. Oister. He is also completing, with coauthors Paley and Oister, an academic version of the two-part article, that will appear in a volume edited by Paul Kries and Randall Osborne, Global Community, Global Security, which will be published in 2008 by Editions Rodopi.
Publisher offering member discount on textbook authoring reference books
Atlantic Path Publishing is offering TAA members 50 percent off Self-Publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials, by Frank Silverman, 30 percent off Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, Second Edition, and 40 percent off Writing and Developing College Textbook Supplements, both by Mary Ellen Lepionka. Silverman's book regularly lists for $32.95, and Lepionka's books regularly list for $37.95 and $19.95. Learn more about these books or purchase one of these books: Click here Visit the Atlantic Path Publishing site: Click here
TAA unveils new Texty, McGuffey logos
TAA has created new logos for its Textbook Excellence Award and McGuffey Longevity Award. These logos can be used by all Texty and McGuffey winners, past and present. Please link your logos to http://www.taaonline.net/awards, or the website associated with the year that you won your award (scroll to the bottom of main awards page for the link). Silver stickers containing either the Texty or McGuffey logo can be ordered for $40 per 100. These stickers can be used on already printed textbooks taken to conferences or sent as complimentary copies. To order stickers, contact Janet Tucker at TAA headquarters at (727) 563-0020 or TextandAcademicAuthors@taaonline.net Download Texty and McGuffey logo images: Click here
Busy TAA Person Matt Stevens
4/4/08 — Matt Stevens was interviewed by the journal of the Design-Build Institute of America, Design-Build Dateline, about his book, Managing a Construction Firm on Just 24 Hours a Day. Read the interview: Click here
TAA members respond with letters to Flores
TAA Executive Director Richard Hull has called on TAA members to help convince Florida Representative Anitere Flores of Miami to include an amendment in a new textbook bill she is presenting to the Florida legislature that would ban the sale of complimentary copies in the state. The bill, HB 603, as it currently stands, would legitimize the sale of complimentary copies by faculty to book resellers and on to students. See below news item for more.
TAA member letters to Flores:
Dear Ms. Flores:
As a long-time faculty member at a public university where many students are financially stressed by the cost of higher education, I am certainly supportive of reasonable efforts to control costs. But I don't think your proposal to let complimentary examination copies of textbooks be sold to students is reasonable. Those copies are provided by publishers so that faculty can make informed choices of text selection. How else would faculty become familiar with books that may be appropriate for courses that they teach?
Yes, the cost of new textbooks is high. But the substantial majority of students resell their books at the end of a term, which brings down substantially their costs. Then these books are sold as used copies, for which authors and publishers receive no revenue whatsoever. So it is not uncommon for a book in a new edition to be sold once as a new book and then 5 or 6 times as a used book. There must be incentives for people to write textbooks. Perhaps you should propose legislation that would require used book companies to pay authors a fee whenever their books are sold used. But please do not let complimentary copies come onto the open market.
Sincerely,
Jay Devore
Professor Emeritus
Department of Statistics
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
Dear Representative Flores:
With this message I hope to persuade you to delete the section of HB Bill 603 that legitimizes the sale of complimentary copies of texts (provided by textbook companies to professors). Instead I urge you to insert a provision that makes this practice illegal. I am a text author whose books have been widely used in Florida.
As an author I encourage my company to make it easy for professors to get copies of texts so that they can consider them for use in their classes. Wide distribution of available texts offers professors choices and increases the likelihood that the best book available will be chosen for use with students. Your bill would result in less access of new books to professors.
"Comp" copies are loaned to professors and prepaid envelopes are provided to allow easy return of copies that are unwanted. In my many years of college teaching, I found that more than a few college teachers solicit texts with the express purpose of selling them. This practice results in increased prices for student since free (unreturned) copies cost the publisher. The practice punishes both authors and students.
Please reconsider the provision in your bill that legitimizes the sale "comp" copies. Instead I urge you to insert a provision that makes the practice of selling "comp" copies illegal. Such a provision would help you achieve your goal of keeping down the cost of texts for students in Florida.
Charles B. Corbin, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Phoenix, AZ
Dear Ms. Flores:
It has come to my attention through the Text and Academic Authors Association that you are sponsoring HB 603, which has a provision that would legitimize the sale of complimentary copies of textbooks. As an educator who tries to teach students to do the right thing and as an author who is concerned about protecting intellectual property, I am opposed to this bill in its current form.
I have served as a professor at the University of Florida for the past 30 years. During this time, I may have received 4 complimentary books that I did not request. Yet, I have received numerous complimentary books that I was considering for adoption for various courses resulting in savings to the State of Florida. Please be advised that I could not identify those books that I requested and those that I received without a request. So how can it be expected that a Professor would make the ethical decision on which books to sell if your bill becomes law?
It is my suggestion that a faculty member donate the one-half percent of the books they receive without a request to the library or to a needy student. Selling all complimentary books reminds me of what I read about in China and their disrespect for U.S. copyright laws. As a Florida citizen, you should be trying to protect my rights for the development of intellectual property. By allowing someone to buy and sell books that I have not received a royalty payment is not fair.
Ms. Flores, please reconsider your bill as it will only benefit a very few greedy business individuals and not the students, teachers, authors, publishers and no legal minded Florida tax payer.
Charles S. Williams, Professor
Department of Tourism, Recreation & Sport Management
Dear Representative Flores:
I have been a textbook author for more than 30 years and continue to be appalled by the "industry" that is involved in buying, selling and reselling comp copies of textbooks.
I strongly recommend that you add a provision to your bill, HB 603, which would ban the sale of comp copies to book resale companies, and through them to students.
1. A comp copy sent to a faculty member is a loan and not a gift. Selling a comp copy is not a legitimate transaction - it is a form of theft.
2. Publishers provide prepaid address labels, or mailers, or websites from which prepaid address labels can be downloaded to facilitate the return of comp copies should a faculty member not wish to keep the copy.
3. Comp copies that are purchased from a faculty member by resale companies for about 10% of list price and resold for 75% of list price is without question price gouging.
4. The repeated reselling of comp copies costs the publishing industry millions of dollars annually. The only way for the publisher to deal with such a loss is to bring out new editions and raise prices of textbooks.
Again, I recommend that you to add a provision to your bill, HB 603, which would ban the sale of comp copies to book resale companies.
Thank you for your serious consideration of my request.
Sincerely
Antony C. Wilbraham
Emeritus Professor of Chemistry
Member of the Text and Academic Authors Association
Dear Representative Flores:
I understand that you are backing a bill in the Florida legislature that would legalize the re-sale of the complementary copies of college textbooks. From what I gather, you are basing your argument in favor of the bill (HB 603) on false arguments.
In fact, the re-sale of comp textbooks is a major factor in driving the prices of textbooks through the roof! If you analyze where the money is going, you will find that it's not all going to the publishers, and certainly not the authors. It's going to the bookstores and used book sellers.
A college bookstore typically pays 50% of the new price for a used or complementary textbook in good condition, and then they sell the same book for 75% of the new book price. That's a return of 50%! The publisher and the author, who combined have put in the creative effort to write and see the book through to completion, and who have taken all the risks, get nothing out of this transaction. That's why prices are so high on new books; the publisher knows it will see seriously diminished sales on the second and subsequent years of a given edition. The re-sale of used and comp textbooks is the major reason for the high prices and also the high frequency of new editions. Ultimately, the students bear the brunt of the practice of re-selling used or complementary textbooks.
Textbook publishers acknowledge the right of the textbook owner to re-sell her/his book, but in fact complementary copies are not owned by by faculty member who has it on loan - that's why a number of states have laws on their books making the sale of comp copies illegal. I would hate to see Florida taking a step backwards to further enrich the used book trade, at the expense of the publishers, the authors, and ultimately, the students.
Sincerely,
Theodore P. Snow
Textbook Author
TAA asks members to help stomp the comp in Florida
TAA Executive Director Richard Hull has called on TAA members to help convince Florida Representative Anitere Flores of Miami to include an amendment in a new textbook bill she is presenting to the Florida legislature that would ban the sale of complimentary copies in the state. The bill, HB 603, as it currently stands, would legitimize the sale of complimentary copies by faculty to book resellers and on to students.
Hull will be meeting with Flores this Thursday, April 3, to explain TAA's position on comp copy sales, and to try to convince her to add an amendment that would prohibit the sale of comp copies by faculty and book resellers. TAA members are asked to send an email to Flores in support of TAA's position, before Thursday. Please e-mail anitere.flores@myfloridahouse.gov and send a copy to TAA.
Here is a copy of the letter sent to TAA members as an Action Alert e-mail on March 31:
Dear TAA Members:There is a bill in the Florida legislature, HB 603, that has a provision that would legitimize the sale of complimentary copies to students. Its sponsor is Representative Anitere Flores of Miami, a Republican. She thinks this measure would help lower the cost of textbooks to students.
I will be meeting with Representative Flores this Thursday (April 3) to explain TAA's position on these sales and try to convince her to add an amendment that would prohibit the sale of comp copies by faculty and book resellers.
Representative Flores has already met with Pearson Education and the Association of American Publishers, and has received TAA's Stomp the Comp brochure (download the brochure here). But she still doesn't see what's wrong with the sale of comp copies.
Her arguments are: 1) Any comp copy that is unsolicited by a faculty member is a gift from a publisher and can be legitimately resold without violation of any implicit agreement between publisher and faculty member; 2) What should a faculty member do with books that arrive unsolicited without any ready way of returning them?; 3) Regulation of the comp resale business interferes with the legitimate business of resale companies; 4) Resale of comp copies involves no price gouging; and 5) The practice of selling and reselling comp copies doesn't affect the cost of textbooks.
All of the above points are false.
1) While it is true that the resale of comp copies is not illegal, the resale of books in general, including comp copies, raises the costs to students by forcing publishers to charge higher prices and publish more frequent new editions to offset the lost sales from used books and comp copies.
2) Publishers provide prepaid address labels, or mailers, or websites from which prepaid mailers or address labels can be downloaded, to facilitate the return of comp copies. Comp copies can also be donated to groups that gather textbooks for use in prisons, or to be sent to third world countries.
3) A resale company should not be allowed to sell a book that was never on the market in the first place. By doing so, they are earning money on a product that the original creators did not earn money on.
4) Resale of comp copies that are purchased for 10% or so of list price for 75% of list price certainly qualifies as price gouging.
5) Repeated reselling of comp copies costs an estimated $1 billion per year annually in a business that nets $3.5 billion. The only way to deal with such a loss is for the publisher to raise prices and bring out new editions.
Please help us convince Representative Anitere Flores to add a provision to her bill, HB 603, that would ban the sale of comp copies to book resale companies, and through them, to students, by sending her an e-mail stating your position on this issue. Please include that you are a member of TAA. Send your emails to anitere.flores@myfloridahouse.gov
Please send a copy of your email to me indicating whether or not we can post it on the TAA website.
Sincerely,
Richard T. Hull
Executive Director
Text and Academic Authors Association
TAA announces 2008 Texty, McGuffey Award winners
The Text and Academic Authors Association has selected seven textbooks to receive a 2008 Textbook Excellence Award ("Texty"), and four textbooks to receive a 2008 William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Award ("McGuffey"). Two textbooks, Governing States & Localities, by Kevin B. Smith, Alan Greenblatt, and Michele Mariani, and Experiencing the Lifespan, by Janet Belsky, tied for a Texty in the College Humanities/Social Sciences category. The awards will be presented during a special session at the 2008 TAA Conference in Las Vegas on June 21, "TAA Awards Ceremony: Standing Out From the Competiton". Learn more about the 2008 TAA Conference: Click here
 Charles "Chuck" Corbin, holds a copy of his textbook Fitness for Life: Middle School, coauthored with Guy Le Masurier and Dolly Lambdin. The textbook won a 2008 Textbook Excellence Award from TAA in the El-Hi Communication/Education/Performing Arts/Visual Arts category. |
The Texty winners for 2008 are:
- Materials Chemistry, 1st ed., by Bradley D. Fahlman, published by Springer (College Physical Sciences category)
- Fitness for Life: Middle School, 1st ed., Charles B. Corbin, Guy C. Le Masurier, and Dolly D. Lambdin, published by Human Kinetics Publishers (El-Hi Communication/Education/Performing Arts/Visual Arts category)
- Computer Security: Principles and Practice, 1st ed., by William Stallings and Lawrie Brown, published by Prentice Hall (College Computer Science/Engineering category)
- Governing States & Localities, 2nd ed., by Kevin B. Smith, Alan Greenblatt, and Michele Mariani , published by CQ Press (College Humanities/Social Sciences category —TIE)
- Experiencing the Lifespan, 1st ed., by Janet Belsky, published by Worth Publishers (College Humanities/Social Sciences category —TIE)
- Writing for Life, 1st ed., by D. J. Henry, published by Pearson Education/Longman (College Language/Literature category)
- Environment: The Science Behind the Stories, 3rd ed., by Jay Withgott and Scott Brennan, published by Pearson Education, Benjamin Cummings (College Life Science category)
The McGuffey winners for 2008 are:
- Principles of Accounting, 10th ed., by Belverd E. Needles, Jr., Marian Powers, and Susan V. Crosson, published by Hougton Mifflin Company College Edition (College Accounting/Business/Economics/Management category)
- Quantitative Chemical Analysis, 7th ed., by Daniel C. Harris, published by W.H. Freeman & Co. (College Physical Sciences category)
- Fundamentals of Logic Design, 5th ed., by Charles H. Roth, published by Thomson-Engineering (College Computer Science/Engineering category)
- Grassroots with Reading, 9th ed., by Susan Fawcett, published by Houghton Mifflin Company (College Language/Literature category)
Click here for award winners' bios, advice and thoughts on winning the award
TAA created the Textbook Excellence Award in 1992 to recognize current textbooks and learning materials. To be nominated, a work must carry a copyright date for the previous or current year. TAA created the McGuffey Longevity Award in 1993 to recognize textbooks and learning materials whose excellence has been demonstrated over time. To be nominated, a work must have been in print 15 years and still be selling. Learn more about TAA's Texty and McGuffey Awards: Click here
Society for Scholarly Publishing to hold annual meeting May 28-30
The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) will be holding its 30th Annual Meeting, "Empires of the Mind: Inventing the Future of Scholarly Publishing", May 28-30 in Boston. The SSP Annual Meeting is an informative three-day event providing educational and networking opportunities for publishers, editors, librarians, scholars, printers, agents, wholesalers, booksellers, and other participants.A pre-meeting seminar, "Digital Preservation", will be held Wednesday, May 28 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.. The seminar will give an update on developments in digital preservation from the perspectives of all the major stakeholders: publishers, librarians and e-archiving vendors. The seminar will provide an opportunity for attendees to learn what is happening in the area of digital preservation for both current and backfile content. For more information, visit the SSP website: Click here
Scholarly publishing on the world wide web
"Working Papers", a graduate student publication of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Romance Languages, has a Q&A roundtable discussion entitled "Wikidemia? Scholarly Publishing on the World Wide Web" on its website. The Roundtable explores such questions as is online publishing a relevant vehicle for academic writing?; How will it affect the way we read, write and pursue our professional interests?; Will current publishing practices become obsolete, and if so, when can we expect to read the last words of offline print culture? Read more: Click hereArchive
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