MITPressLog

R.I.P. Jonathan Tucker

We're saddened to pass on news of the passing of Jonathan B. Tucker, who was found dead at his Washington, D.C. home on July 31, a few days shy of his 57th birthday.

Tucker, a native of Boston, was an expert in chemical biological weapons, and his work straddled the worlds of science and policy. He spent 15 years at the Monterey Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. According to an obituary in the Washington Post, he was awaiting confirmation to a new position at the Department of Homeland Security at the time of his death.

Tucker was the editor of the 2000 book Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. Before he died he completed work on a new edited collection: Innovation, Dual Use, and Security: Managing the Risks of Emerging Biological and Chemical Technologies. That book will be published in the Spring of next year.

He will be missed.

Let the Sesquicentennial begin!

After many months of preparation (and 150 years of famously impactful work) MIT's sesquicentennial is upon us: today marks the first of 150 days of celebration. The celebration begins this afternoon at the MIT Museum  with a special preview of the 150 Exhibition, a collection of 150 objects chosen through the collective wisdom of the MIT community. These 150 objects evoke the Institute's distinctive culture, history, and accomplishments. Included too is a list of MIT Press' most influential publications. Thirty influential works from MIT Press' list of 9,000 titles highlight the many seminal works in science, technology, and other disciplines published since 1926.

Be sure to check these and the entire 150 Exhibition.

In memoriam: Bill Freudenburg

We're deeply saddened to have to announce the death of our author William Freudenburg, who died on December 28 at his home in Santa Barbara after a long battle with cancer. He was 59.

Especially painful is the fact that only months ago we published Bill's first book with us: Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America. In the aftermath of the explosion of the BP well, Freudenburg and coauthor Robert Gramling - both well-known energy experts - quickly wrote up their diagnosis of the regulatory failures that led, almost inevitably, to the disaster, and added their prescription for a better and saner U.S. energy policy. We published the book quickly - and proudly. And we're deeply sorry that we won't get the opportunity to do more with Bill.

A public memorial service will be held January 22 at the University of California Santa Barbara, where Bill had taught since 2002. A public lecture that he gave about the oil spill about a month before his death is here. Much more about Bill - including a bio, stories, and pictures - is at a website set up by his family in his memory.

He will be missed.

25 influential titles: A Press-wide debate

Next year marks the 150^th anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to prepare, we at the MIT Press are thinking about what it means to have an influence. As part of the anniversary celebration, the MIT Museum is planning the “MIT 150 Exhibition” which will feature 150 “evocative objects” that represent major elements or moments that have either significantly shaped MIT’s history or that invoke aspects of MIT’s identity. The exhibit will feature 25 of our most influential titles—including books and journals— that have shaped their respective disciplines over time.

The MIT Museum has reached out to include a wide range of voices from the MIT community in putting together the exhibit.  To this end, Deborah Douglas, MIT Museum Science and Technology Curator, met with a panel of MITP staff members last week for a lunchtime discussion to tackle the question of what makes a book or journal influential—is it simply a matter of sales and citations, or is influence based on less measurable things?

Representatives from the various departments at the Press came armed with extensive lists of possible titles, and a conversation ensued regarding the criteria for book selection. Discussion was rich and varied from book to book and journal to journal. Acquisitions editors argued for the major players in their fields, and the titles that garnered the most nominations not only redefined, but occasionally created a new discipline. One such innovative book that had many advocates was Michael Gazzaniga’s classic reference, The Cognitive Neurosciences, which was instrumental in the development of this growing field. Some in our Production department talked about particular books’ importance and influence as objects, achievements for their own novel or beautiful design. Our Marketing department pulled out a list of the bestsellers over the course of MIT Press history, but many argued that a highly successful title wasn’t necessarily a highly influential title. As a group, we zeroed in on those titles that played the largest a role in shaping intellectual discourse throughout the years.

The discussion continues, as well as our collaboration with the MIT Museum in anticipation of the Institute’s big year. Visit the MIT 150 Exhibition, set to open on January 7, 2011, to see which titles make the cut!

 

 

TURNING FIVE

People think it’s easy being the PressLog.

 Sigh. If they only knew.

 Our blog – created and expertly curated to keep you informed on the comings & goings of MIT Press books, journals, and authors – turns five this week. Gee, that sounds great, you say to yourself. After all, five-year-olds are cheerful, energetic, and enthusiastic, and they enjoy making up games with simple rules. Supposedly they like to put on puppet shows, too.

 “Cheerful?” I hear the PressLog shouting. “Enthusiastic? Are you KIDDING me?” The almost-kindergartner then proceeds to carp at length about all the dark, sometimes difficult topics it’s had to deal with this past year. It was on the front line of stuff like Internet censorship, the Berlin Wall, and the financial turmoil in Greece. Heavy topics like the Gulf oil spill, the health-care debate, and, horror of horrors…Kanye West. Not to mention all those eccentric folks over at Semiotext(e).

“I even had to talk about the President of IRAN,” whines the little guy, “and I’m supposed to be playing GAMES?” (Don’t even get it started on the puppets thing.)

 As with most five-year-olds, though, things looks better once they calm down a little bit. And as we reflect on the PressLog’s fifth year, it turns out it wasn’t so bad - and pretty intellectually diverse to boot. We asked whether someone had created life in the lab – and, if so, could you patent it? We checked book price wars, asked you if you wanted to go to art school, and marked Earth Day’s 40^th anniversary. And we got multiple opportunities to talk about one of our favorite women – Grace Hopper. (You go, girl.)

All that notwithstanding, the PressLog did have to take on some painful duties, such as saying goodbye to some of our authors: Those whom we memorialized included Paul Samuelson, Yegor Gaidar, Howard Johnson, Susan Leigh Star, Olga Amsterdamska, Anne Friedberg, and Stephen Schneider. We also bid a sad farewell to author, board member, adviser, and all-around visionary Bill Mitchell, one of the best friends the Press ever had. All will be missed.

But hey, we won lotsa prizes! And published our 9000^th book! (Grammar as Science, but you knew that.) And when it all got to be too much, you could just meditate. Or go look at trees. Or, heck, talk like a pirate.

And as its cruises headlong into its sixth year, the PressLog is getting more mature by the day, ready to handle whatever hot topics and simmering debates arise in our little intellectual universe. As always, thank you all so much for reading, tweeting, and following  - even the five-year-olds among us appreciate it.

Oh, and about that cake…well, maybe next year.

MIT Press Outstanding Academic Titles from 2009

Choice Magazine reviews and recommends scholarly books and media for academic libraries. Each year, Choice publishes a list of “Outstanding Academic Titles”. This prestigious list reflects the best titles reviewed by Choice in the preceding year and brings with it the recognition of the academic library community. The 2009 list, which has just been announced, includes 612 print and 40 electronic titles. The following MIT Press titles have been recognized as Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009:

The Ethics of Protocells: Moral and Social Implications of Creating Life in the Laboratory, edited by Mark A. Bedau and Emily C. Parke

America's Food: What You Don't Know About What You Eat, by Harvey Blatt

Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States, by Robert W. Fairlie and Alicia M. Robb

Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise, by Holly Fernandez Lynch

Minimum Wages, by David Neumark and William L. Wascher

Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Game Worlds, by Michael Nitsche

Contagion and Chaos: Disease, Ecology, and National Security in the Era of Globalization, by Andrew T. Price-Smith

Design Concepts in Programming Languages, by Franklyn Turbak and David Gifford with Mark A. Sheldon

9,000 Strong

The start of a new decade brings us a milestone here at MIT Press: the nine-thousandth book we have published.

  Book #9,000 is Grammar As Science by Richard K. Larson.  This introductory linguistics textbook offers a novel approach to the study of syntax: it presents core topics of syntax as exercises in scientific theorizing and scientific thought.  The book (and accompanying software) emerged from a joint project, funded by the National Science Foundation, between the Linguistics and Computer Science department at SUNY Stony Brook. The goal of the project, and ultimately the book, is to help students develop scientific reasoning skills by analyzing language data. 

Larson's innovative approach to teaching linguistics remind us of the many new contributions to pedagogy made by MIT Press titles throughout our history.     

Award News: Asylum Wins Ken Book Award

We're pleased to announce that Chris Payne’s Asylum has won the 2010 Ken Book Award given by the National Alliance on Mental Illness of NYC-Metro (NAMI-NYC Metro). NAMI-NYC Metro is a grassroots organization that provides support, education, and advocacy for families and individuals of all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds who live with mental illness. NAMI-NYC Metro works collaboratively with state and national affiliates to educate the public, advocate for legislation, reduce stigma, and improve the mental health system.

The Ken Book Award honors authors whose works have shed light on the realities of mental illness. Previous awardees have included Jane Pauley, Quincy Jones, Wally Lamb, Sylvia Nasser, Rick Moody, Kay Jamison, Simon Winchester, Sherwin Nuland, and Andrew Solomon.

Neuroscience 2009

Promotions Coordinator, Allison Hoch, was one of four MIT Pressers manning our booth at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Chicago last month.   Here are some highlights:

Society for Neuroscience is one of my favorite meetings to attend as an exhibitor. The folks at this meeting - all 30,000+ of them - spend plenty of time on the exhibits floor and especially along publisher's row. Our reputation seems to proceed us - our strong history in this field garners us a lot of attention. I love getting to interact with our customers who seem as equally passionate about buying our books as I am about selling them. It was a thrill to attend this conference for the fourth time and be greeted by familiar faces returning to our booth to purchase new titles and beloved favorites for their friends or students.

 
This is the largest conference we attend and one of the longest; my co-workers and I spent a week in Chicago where this year's Society for Neuroscience meeting was held. Two days of travel, one day to set-up, four days of selling, and one day off in-between. The days in the convention center start for us at 8:30 am when we arrive early to set-up our computers and end at 5:30 when we finally close up shop and usher the last straggling customers out of the booth. This year things were so busy that we even brought packed lunches to eat between sales. And we celebrated successful work days with hot pastrami, deep-dish pizza, or one of the famous Illinois "Horseshoe" sandwiches.

This year was a record one for us - we practically sold out of every title we brought. Whether it was our new 30% conference discount or just a hunger for knowledge, we'd be hard-pressed to say, but the economy did not seem to waylay the majority of our customers. As always, our bestseller was Ramon y Cajal's Advice for a Young Investigator but we also saw a lot of interest in our new titles: Charles Gross' A Hole in the Head, Why We Cooperate by Michael Tomasello,  Computational Modeling Methods for Neuroscientists by Erik De Schutter, Wednesday is Indigo Blue by Richard Cytowic and David Eagleman, and of course Michael Gazzaniga's new book (4th) editon of The Cognitive Neurosciences.

Special Issue of Innovations

In conjunction with the clean energy address that President Obama is delivering at MIT today, MIT Press is releasing essays from the soon to be published fall special issue of Innovations journal on energy and climate solution. The pre-released essays are authored by White House Science Adviser John Holdren, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling, and the Director of MIT’s Washington office, William Bonvillian.

 

In his introducing to the special issue, Holdren states that the forthcoming publication is “as thorough a survey of energy and climate solutions as has yet been compiled.” Of the climate challenge, he writes:

 

“Without energy, there is no economy. Without climate, there is no environment. Without economy and environment, there is no material well-being, no civil society, no personal or national security. The overriding problem associated with these realities, of course, is that the world has long been getting most of the energy its economies need from fossil fuels whose emissions are imperiling the climate that its environment needs.”

 

Schelling, a leader in the study of climate change for over three decades, advances a new proposal for international coordination. Writing with reference to next month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Schelling states,

“Among the ideas that I do not believe will get serious attention in Copenhagen is one I see as critical to addressing the climate challenge: creating a new institutional structure to coordinate assistance from advanced industrialized countries to developing countries with the objective of transforming the way that people in the developing world produce and utilize energy.”

 

Bonvillian’s essay, co-authored with GeorgetownUniversity’s Charles Weiss, summarizes and advances the core arguments presented in the authors’ MIT Press book title Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution. Bonvillian and Weiss argue that the transformation of the energy technology infrastructure represents an unprecedented challenge for policy-makers as well as for technological innovators:

“Where complex technology sectors like energy are involved, we need to have Congress legislate standard packages of incentives and support across common technology launch areas, so that some technology neutrality is preserved and the optimal emerging technology has a chance to prevail.”

 

The Director of the MIT Press, Ellen Faran, states that “The Innovations special issue reflects the commitment of MIT and the MIT Press to promote innovative solutions to global issues and to encourage the widest dissemination of its scholarship.”

 

Sample articles from the issue follow below. Members of the media wishing to see an advance copy of the issue should contact: editors@innovationsjournal.net.