If Publishers Perished, Just What Would Be Lost?

In an effort to increase awareness and understanding of how publishers add value to the scholarly information process, three members of Duke University Press describe operational, production, and marketing functions from a day-to-day perspective. They discuss how a high-quality university press journals publisher maintains the delicate equilibrium between revenues and expenses, how a “raw” manuscript is converted to a published journal article, and how the marketing department serves the functions of dissemination and distribution. Each presenter also touched on the question of how electronic publishing would impact their job. [Article copies available from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678.]