MY BACK PAGES (MY BACK PAGES: An undeniably personal history of publishing 1972-2022)

Product Information

Scientific publishers will abandon any semblance of print production including the age-old tradition of printed offprints of an author’s article.

Richard Charkin with Tom Campbell. 2023. My Back Pages—An

And then there’s the marketing. Scientific and academic publishing has always viewed its marketplace as global. The very idea of territorial separation is alien. Trade books do have separate markets with different tastes but those differences are diminishing. It will still be blended learning but as in any blend everything depends on the proportions of the ingredients. In education, these proportions will never be the same again. But some things will never—or never should—be the same again. While I’m absolutely certain others that others will have their own—and probably better—ideas, here’s my list of irreversible changes in our industry. In Publishing’s Post-Pandemic Future George Richardson was secretary to the delegates—the chief executive—of Oxford University Press (OUP) from 1974 to 1988. I worked there from 1975 to 1988 so we were almost exact contemporaries. I think the single biggest change is more women in the industry, which has worked terrifically well.”Of course there are stories about well-known personalities he has encountered - Madonna, Jeffrey Archer, Robert Maxwell, Paul Hamlyn, Mohammed Al-Fayed and many more. But his primary purpose is to provide an insider’s account of the social, technological, commercial and geographical developments as seen through the eyes of a gifted all-round publisher who has made a very significant contribution to the profession.

MY BACK PAGES : An undeniably personal history of publishing

Surely working from home will continue, with benefits to family life, avoidance of commuting stress, the economics of publishing, and the trust and empowerment of publishing employees.

That was then and now we say goodbye to 2021, a revolutionary year in many ways for the publishing industry. At George Richardson’s funeral service, St. John’s Oxford. Richardson’s contemporaries from Oxford University Press. Image: Nigel Portwood

Richard Charkin - Wikipedia Richard Charkin - Wikipedia

Some key contractual rules I insisted on with all titles and authors in spite of initial resistance were: Charkin’s time as both head of reference and managing director at Oxford University Press was incredibly influential to the evolution of the Oxford English Dictionary. Known as “the Shark” around Oxford, Charkin cemented himself as an assertive and confident figure looking to improve both the functional and international purposes of the Press. In 1982, he pitched the idea of abandoning manual editing/publication for a more efficient, computerized editing/publishing system. By 1983, Charkin secured a deal with both IBM and ICC to get the necessary equipment and assistance for the computerization of the Dictionary. By 1984, Oxford University had approved Charkin and co.’s project, which confirmed the digitized future of the OED. Many members of the Press wondered if Charkin’s successful ruminations would lead to the end of the Print, worrying that the introduction of the “New OED” project would far exceed the popularity of the original edition. For the next five years, Charkin and co. worked tirelessly to merge the Supplements with the OED in preparation for the 1989 release of the Second Edition. Charkin and the University Press agreed that, after this Edition, they could finally begin expanding upon the long-awaited distribution of CD-ROMs containing OED text. In 1992, this was made a reality, thanks to the efforts of Charkin, alongside John Simpson, Ed Weiner, the Tim Benbow, Julia Swanell and more. The Internet was still not a public tool at this point, making CD availability a big deal for readers and editors alike. This was achieved through the project team’s painstaking effort of manually inputting the whole text of the OED, a personal choice that was made to honour the traditional print-based method. Charkin’s willingness to push the Press in a bigger and bolder direction gave the team confidence to see the digitization project through, an accomplishment that evolved the art of lexicography and paved the way for the future of online publication. Charkin, R. (2023, January 22). Richard Charkin: Three Gifts for Publishing's Christmas. Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://publishingperspectives.com/2022/12/richard-charkin-three-gifts-for-publishings-christmas/ I have worked in publishing for most of my adult career (30+ years), but all on the editorial side and never gave much thought to the business side. That might be as inconceivable to you as it is to me (after having read your book). And loved reading about Mensch Publishing (love the name, the concept, and the “mission statement”). My friends and I have a tradition of giving a “mensch rating” to the partners that our various children bring home. Anyway, thank you so much for this book and for all your work and knowledge. All best with sales and distribution. I see you have an event tonight and wish I were in London to attend it. However, I WILL be in London for a few days in the fall (I think it’s early Nov) and would love to meet you if you’re around.I owe my career to Ron Hawkins, the interviewer and my first boss. I also owe a lot to the Harrap family, which owned the business—Mr. Paull, Mr. Ian, and Mr. Olaf—for allowing me a paid apprenticeship and bearing the losses I inevitably incurred through my inexperience. In any event, this is to wish all my friends, colleagues, and competitors in the book and journal trade the very best for 2022 as we navigate a rapidly changing world with products, both print and digital, that educate, entertain, and inform and very rarely do evil. I’m deeply grateful for the 50 years I’ve enjoyed in a great global industry and look forward to a few more yet. By Richard Charkin | @RCharkin ‘The Importance of Collecting and Analyzing Data’ I‘m writing this on January 1. It’s exactly 50 years since I turned up at the side entrance of George G.Harrap & Co., at 182-184 High Holborn, London, WC2, on January 1, 1972, having been interviewed and accepted for the job of a “Young Scientific Assistant Editor.” January 1 wouldn’t become a bank holiday in England until 1974. Attending crowded meeting rooms in real life is exhausting and unsatisfying—as much as is staring at a screen full of talking heads for hours on end. The more people at a meeting the more opinions, the more politics, the fewer good decisions. What’s it like publishing a fellow professional? If all publisher/author relationships worked like this, our lives would be much easier than my experience tells me they are.