For Immediate Release
Contact: Kate Kolendo
212-255-0200 ext. 226
Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the
Association of American Publishers Launches 2008 PROSE Awards
New York, October 30, 2008: Each year, publishers from across the country compete for more than 35 top prizes presented by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers. Now in its 33rd year, the awards program, formerly known as the PSP Awards for Excellence, is taking on a new face—and a new name.
This year the competition is re-launching as the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (the “PROSE Awards”), in conjunction with a re-branding effort to enhance the visibility and recognition of these highly esteemed prizes, making them the premier awards for outstanding professional and scholarly publishing in the United States. The prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award, created in 1976 to recognize exceptional scholarly works in all disciplines of the arts and sciences, will continue to be given for the most outstanding professional, reference, or scholarly work among the year’s award winners.
Increased online presence with a new PROSE Awards website, extended publicity and marketing campaigns, and expansion of the awards luncheon to include a multimedia component, are some of the other changes being introduced by the Awards Committee and its new chairman, John A. Jenkins, President and Publisher of CQ Press. Jenkins is also a PSP Executive Council member, and co-chairman of the PSP Books Committee.
Publishers will benefit from changes that not only enhance the prestige of the awards, but also improve publishers’ chances of taking home prizes. The 2008 Awards Committee is permitting an unlimited number of submissions per publisher in any category, allowing for more flexibility in judging criteria and prerogative, and encouraging publishers to submit both print and electronic products through award categories that reflect the changing nature and formats of professional and scholarly publishing. Additionally, although originally limited to PSP members, awards eligibility has been extended to members of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) member companies.
All of these improvements, according to Jenkins, are designed to create an awards program worthy of the works that have been entered into competition. “Every year, PSP honors the very best work in professional and scholarly publishing—our industry’s largest sector,” Jenkins explains. “With the American Publishers Awards, we will have a program that matches the growth and vitality of our publishing community.”
The introduction of this new approach to recognizing publishing excellence will culminate in the presentation of the 2008 PROSE Awards at a special Awards Ceremony Luncheon on Thursday, February 5, 2009, at the PSP Annual Conference, to be held February 4–6, 2009, at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2008 PROSE Awards. Note that companies must be PSP or AAUP members to be eligible for prizes. For information on how to submit, please visit the PSP website at www.pspcentral.org. The deadline for submissions is Monday, November 3, 2008.
About PSP
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry, with more than300 members that include most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as many smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. Members of AAP’s Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP) include more than 100 professional societies, commercial publishers and university presses that publish the vast majority of books, journals, computer software, databases and websites that are used in the U.S. by scholars and professionals in the fields of science, medicine, technology, business, law, reference, social science and the humanities.