- Study investigates use of e-books and print materials
- Q&A: What are some of the rewards of textbook writing?
- Featured Member Sherry Bishop: Instructor retires from teaching to focus on writing
- Duganne awarded $200 TAA Publication Grant
- De Crée receives $1,000 TAA Publication Grant
- Call for nominations to TAA’s Council of Fellows
Study investigates use of e-books and print materials
By Dionne Soares Palmer
UC survey findings Researchers from the California Digital Library and UC campus libraries surveyed 2,569 people to determine library users’ preferences for print books or e-books, how users interact with e-books, how library users discover books in the Springer collection in particular, and how satisfied users were with the Springer e-book collection. Some of their findings include:
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The debate over print book vs. e-book value and functionality continues to impact the evolving textbook industry. Universities and colleges across the country are faced with evaluating what mix works most effectively for faculty and students.
The University of California recently embarked on a study of print and e-book material use, the findings of which will be used to determine library acquisitions and shape library services within the UC system.
The researchers at the University of California Libraries wanted to investigate e-book use in order to determine how to best allocate funds to serve library patrons. “We have a lot of studies that indicate that people are using print selections less and less. Storage space is expensive for print collections, so naturally we are interested in moving toward e-book collections, but we wanted to see what the feedback was from the user community,” said Chan Li, data analyst at California Digital Library and co-author of the study.
“Our findings are important as they are informing decision-makers within the library system of the needs and behaviors of students and faculty — the decisions that we make need to support their work,” said Felicia Poe, manager at the California Digital Library, and study co-author.
The study’s findings also specify ways that libraries can develop services to improve the effectiveness of e-books for academic research. Poe recommended that libraries examine the factors that acted as barriers to e-book adoption and create solutions. For example, in order to address reader frustration with e-book annotations, Poe suggested “allowing users to save their e-books into a single area, so they can always go back and visit a source they have already used and annotated.”
Li, Poe, and their colleagues have not yet taken action on such innovative ideas because they are waiting on the results of sister studies that are examining other library services such as Interlibrary Loan. “We’re still collecting all the information. We’ll learn more from the final report, and then decide what actions to take,” said Li.
Dionne Soares Palmer is a freelance writer based in northern California.
Q: What are some of the rewards of textbook writing?
A: Erin C. Amerman, author of Exploring Anatomy & Physiology in the Laboratory, 1e (2010):
“Authoring a textbook from scratch is, naturally, an incredibly laborious process. It means often working 80-hour work weeks, giving up weekends, and facing occasional scathing comments from one's peers. For me, it also meant that my daughter's first intelligible sentence was, ‘Mommy, work, book.’ Without a doubt, textbook authoring demands sacrifices. Given all of this, one may wonder why anyone ever bothers to undertake such a massive task. The answer lies in the many rewards of textbook writing. In my opinion, the biggest such reward is the ability to create something brand new, something that will enhance the learning experience of students and make a positive impact on their education. As professors, we all have the opportunity to touch our students' lives, but textbook authoring offers one the opportunity to do this on a much grander scale.”
A: William Briggs, coauthor of Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 1e (2010):
“My passion is teaching and I have always seen writing as another dimension of teaching. Like teaching, writing is a way to communicate (often complex) ideas and make them understandable for students. Because teaching and writing are so closely intertwined, I find textbook writing just as rewarding as teaching.”
A: Jerry Wilson, coauthor of An Introduction to Physical Science, 12e (2009):
“Of course there is the hoped-for pecuniary reward, but this is usually not the initial thought. (In writing a first edition of a textbook, one would do well not to compute one’s hourly rate of royalty compensation.) Instead, the initial motivation in writing a textbook is teaching – thinking you can get a subject across clearer or with a more interesting approach that would help student learning and understanding.
It is a reward to observe this directly. In my academic career, I have taught hundreds of students in physics and physical science. However, in my 40 years of writing, I consider it a reward to have indirectly taught thousands of students with my textbooks.”
Featured Member Sherry Bishop:
Instructor retires from teaching to focus on writing
by Dionne Soares Palmer
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Sherry Bishop believes that in order to have a successful textbook writing career, you have to really love it and really want to do it.
In May 2010 Sherry Bishop decided to focus her professional efforts exclusively on authoring textbooks, after years juggling a demanding writing schedule and a full-time teaching load.
“The writing came to the point where I had two full time jobs,” Bishop said, “so I decided to write full time. I had taught for 32 years, and I was ready for a bit of a change.” Her writing career also provided her the flexibility to spend more time with her children and grandchildren and travel with her husband.
Bishop, a former web and graphic design instructor at North Arkansas College, began writing her first textbook, Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 Illustrated, in 2000, after being approached at a conference by an acquisitions editor from Course Technology. She has since authored or co-authored 27 titles for Course Technology and Delmar, including Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Revealed, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Illustrated, and Macromedia Dreamweaver CS3 Revealed. Her most recent book, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Revealed, published in 2010, won a 2011 TAA Textbook Excellence Award. She is currently coauthoring a textbook about interactive media design.
Textbook authors, and in particular, technology textbook authors, face many challenges. For example, Bishop uses the beta version of a program as the basis for the initial drafts of her books, and then does a final revision when the technology is released to the public to ensure the details are accurate. Working with beta software means dealing with frustrating bugs and glitches, she said: “I don’t have a lot of resources to turn to when I get stuck. There is support online in a beta community, but there’s no manual to turn to because I’m the one writing the manual!”
Although textbook authoring is a very challenging career, Bishop feels the frustration and months of hard work pay off when you hold the finished product in your hands., She still finds it a thrilling moment to receive the first copy of her book: “My hands are shaking when I open it up. I just can’t wait to see it.”
Duganne awarded $200 TAA Publication Grant
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Erina Duganne, an assistant professor of art history at Texas State University, has been awarded a $200 TAA Publication Grant. The grant will cover the cost of reproducing images for her essay, "Family Folktales: Carrie Mae Weems, Allan Sekula, and the Critique of Documentary Photography," which will appear in English Language Notes in fall 2011.
"This grant was exceedingly helpful, since without it, I would not have been able to publish the necessary images that I discuss in great detail in this essay and thus much of the nuances of the arguments that I make would have been lost," said Duganne. "This grant is very important to scholars like myself who need to reproduce visual images with their publications but cannot afford the high reproduction and copyright costs associated with these reproductions."
Duganne's essay will appear in a special issue of English Language Notes that is entitled "The Shape of I". "I was asked to contribute to this publication based on the subject of my recently published book, The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography," she said. "My essay, extends ideas about the intricate relationship between race and subjectivity that I explore in this book. But whereas in my book I predominantly consider photographers working during the 1950s and 1960s, in this essay, I examine questions of subjectivity, race, and authorship in relation to two American artists working in the late 1970s and early 1980s: Carrie Mae Weems and Allan Sekula."
Duganne teaches courses in the history of photography, the history of American art, and the history and methodologies of art history as well as courses on race and its representation and popular culture. She is the author of The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography (University Press of New England, 2010), an examination of the historically specific ways in which the self has been experienced, conceptualized, and reflected in relation to photographic representations of race in postwar America. Her essays have also appeared in the anthologies New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement and Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation as well as in the exhibition catalogue Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain for which she served as a co-curator. Most recently, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the University of Potsdam during the 2009-2010 academic year.
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TAA Publication Grants are open to member and non-member authors. Authors can apply for a Publication Grant of up to $1000 to cover the cost of publishing already accepted journal articles, or for the preparation of artwork or other charts, diagrams or images to be included in accepted articles or academic books.
De Crée receives $1,000 TAA Publication Grant
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Reproductive endocrinologist and exercise physiologist Carl De Crée has been awarded a TAA Publication Grant in the amount of $1,000 to cover a portion of the page charges incurred in publishing his article, Kǒdǒkan Jῡdǒ's Inauspicious Ninth Kata: The Joshi goshinhǒ —“Self-Defense Methods for Women”, which appeared in the August 2011 issue of Archives of Budǒ.
"I feel honored by this recognition," said De Crée. "Receiving this grant to support the publication of our work is also a boost of confidence for me to continue this line of research in often difficult circumstances. We feel extremely encouraged by the support we have received from TAA."
In his article, De Crée and his coauthor Dr. Llyr C. Jones demythologize the early history of women’s jῡdǒ. Making use of rare primary sources and careful application of heuristics they show that the early Kǒdǒkan jῡdǒ women’s program promoted subserviency of women by incorporating non-jῡdǒ-related etiquette in a women-patronizing framework and focusing on optimizing women’s health as a preparation for child birth.
"Very little actual self-defense was taught to women contrary to men, and when at the dawn of the Second World War such finally became part of the women’s jῡdǒ curriculum, the driving force was not its founder Jigorǒ Kanǒ’s pacifist ideals, but Japanese fascism particularly geared against foreigners and people of non-Japanese ethnicity," he said.
It is the merit of De Crée and Jones’ work that they introduce critical analysis into historical research of Japanese jῡdǒ, which in Japan is nearly nonexistent due to challenging those holding senior positions in jῡdǒ or questioning authors or dissenting with those who have passed away, being often perceived as showing a lack of respect, this to the detriment of unveiling historic and academic accuracy. In addition, the article by De Crée and Jones offers an important contribution to cross-cultural gender studies.
De Crée is a senior research professor of exercise science and sports medicine, who also holds further undergraduate and graduate degrees in Asian Linguistics & History (double major Chinese/Japanese). He is internationally well-known for his path-breaking work in reproductive endocrinology and sports medicine, and he is a leading international authority in the physiology, history, philosophy, and technical aspects of jῡdǒ, in which he holds the Japanese martial arts teaching credential of kyǒshi and the rank of 7th dan. He is a certified International Coach in jῡdǒ, as well as Master Teacher, and International Referee. He is fluent in seven languages including Japanese and Chinese.
Before coming to the U.S., De Crée lived in Japan, where he intensively researched both jῡdǒ and classical martial arts. Prior to that, he enjoyed an intensive international career as a competitive jῡdǒka in Europe, Japan and Korea. He credits his jῡdǒ teachers Felix Desmedt, Marcel Clause, Tokio Hirano, Yǒji Kurimura and Isao Okano, as well as the inspirational environment of the Seikijuku in Tǒkyǒ, and of Kyǒto Prefectural Police Dǒjǒ, for his technical refinement and passion. De Crée has developed a particular interest in jῡdǒ as a form of education and how it relates to gender and racial equality and discrimination. His research on jῡdǒ and other medical work has appeared in prestigious scientific journals including The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, amongst others. Currently, he still spends much of his time as an educator traveling the globe to teach jῡdǒ technical, kata, and competitive clinics or as a speaker at scientific conferences.
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TAA Publication Grants are open to member and non-member authors. Authors can apply for a Publication Grant of up to $1000 to cover the cost of publishing already accepted journal articles, or for the preparation of artwork or other charts, diagrams or images to be included in accepted articles or academic books.
Call for nominations to TAA’s Council of Fellows
TAA invites you to apply or nominate a candidate for membership in its prestigious Council of Fellows. The application deadline is December 15, 2011.
TAA’s Council of Fellows members are distinguished authors who have a long record of successful and diverse publication as a textbook author, an academic author, or both. Candidates should be authors whose textbooks or academic articles or books have established their presence in their field.
Council of Fellows members are chosen by a TAA Selection Committee based on a set of criteria which includes their level of participation in TAA activities; teaching excellence; quality and quantity of textbooks (if textbook authors); and quality and quantity of professional journal articles, monographs and edited books (if academic authors).
Applications must include documentation in support of the Council of Fellows Criteria. Send your application and documentation to:
TAA, Council of Fellows
P.O. Box 56359
St. Petersburg, FL 33732-6359
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