Complete issues of UHV’s American Book Review to soon be online
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| Jeffrey Di Leo |
More people soon will have access to the American Book Review, a literary journal based at the University of Houston-Victoria, thanks to an online publishing agreement with a project managed by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
“This agreement will allow our current subscribers to view a complete, online edition of every ABR issue at no extra cost, in addition to the print version they already receive,” said Jeffrey Di Leo, ABR editor/publisher and dean of the UHV School of Arts & Sciences. “University faculty members also will be able to go to libraries that subscribe to Project MUSE and gain easy access to ABR articles to use for their courses and academic research.”
Project MUSE is managed by the Johns Hopkins University Press in Baltimore, Md., in collaboration with participating publishers and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University. The project provides full-text access in nearly 2,000 libraries to content from more than 400 journals representing nearly 100 not-for-profit publishers, Project MUSE Director Mary Rose Muccie said.
“We are excited to be working with the American Book Review,” she said. “This journal has broader newsstand appeal than many of the more academic-type journals that we represent.”
The ABR staff had to apply for the journal to become part of Project MUSE.
“We only take in a limited number of titles each year,” Muccie said. “We are looking for journals that are well established, well run and have really high quality standards.”
Project MUSE staff will start putting complete ABR issues online beginning in January with the January/February edition. In addition, there are plans to put back issues of ABR online.
“This is going to mean more exposure for both ABR and UHV,” Di Leo said. “The frequently neglected works of fiction, poetry and criticism published by small presses that we review in ABR also will get more attention.”
The ABR staff currently puts portions of each edition online at www.americanbookreview.org, but the agreement with Project MUSE will allow people to access complete editions, he said.
ABR is a nonprofit, internationally distributed literary journal that is published six times a year. It began in 1977, moved to UHV in 2007 and now has a circulation of about 8,000.
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 80 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.
