Scholarly Publishing in America.

This monograph provides an overview of traditional academic publishing in America today. Discussed first are the philosophical differences between trade and text publishing (which includes scholarly books), as they apply to the types of manuscripts selected for publication and expectations for profit. The paper goes on to explain how editors who work on scholarly books and professional networks function; and then follows the process of manuscript submission, acquisition, and selection, and, briefly, the actual book production process. A short section on publishing doctoral dissertations is followed by a discussion of the various review media for scholarly books. The problems of plagiarism are noted, and there is a careful discussion of the need to keep costs down. Finally, the paper reviews some of the many corporate changes and the increasing specialization, which also have impacted on scholarly publishing, and concludes with a note of appreciation for the value of scholarly publishing. (CH)