Q, What is the purpose of academic books?As part of Academic Book Week celebrations, The University of Manchester Library and Manchester University Press would like to invite you to attend a specially organised panel event where selected members have come together to discuss the academic book and answer questions such as ‘what is an academic book?’, ‘what does it contribute?’ and ‘what is its future?‘.
Academic books have been subject to a number of dramatic changes in recent years and yet books continue to make a fundamental contribution to scholarly communication within many disciplines. This panel event will include members from the four main groups that can dictate the future of the academic book – researchers, librarians, publishers and booksellers – who will try to piece together a coherent understanding of the academic book and its future.
Emma Brennan, Editorial Director and Senior Commissioning Editor at Manchester University Press.
Prof Hilary Pilkington, Professor in Sociology, The University of Manchester Hilary Pilkington joined the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester in 2012. She was previously Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick (2005-2012) and Director of the Centre of Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham (2002-2005). She has a long standing research interest in youth and youth cultural practices, post-socialist societies and qualitative, especially, ethnographic research methods.
Dr Doug Field, Senior Lecturer in 20th Century American Lit, The University of Manchester. Doug sits on the Editorial Committee of Manchester University Press and he is the co-founding editor of the James Baldwin Review, an annual peer-reviewed journal published by Manchester University Press. Doug is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement & I’m a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Sandra Bracegirdle, Head of Collection Management, The University of Manchester. Sandra has strategic responsibility for all aspects of the lifecycle of stock, including acquisitions, cataloguing, stock and logistics and collection care, in all formats; printed, microform and electronic as well as managing the Libraryā€™s content budget.
Paul Thornton, Manager Blackwell’s Bookshop, The University of Manchester Campus
Simon Ross, CEO, Manchester University Press, previously managing director of Cambridge Journals, CUP’s global journals business. Prior to that he worked in senior management and editorial roles at the Times Publishing Group, Pearson Education, Sage Publications and Kluwer Academic Publishers.
The event is designed to appeal to anyone with an interest ā€“ whether vested or passing ā€“ in the academic book and its future, from researchers to librarians, booksellers to publishers, students to university staff and also the wider general public.