The market for university press books in the United States: 1985–1999

University press books play a pivotal role in the transmission of knowledge among academics and to serious readers outside universities. Yet the market for these books underwent substantive changes and posted lacklustre increases in net publishers' revenues and unit sales between 1985 and 1999. In this article, statistical data on university presses' net publishers' unit and dollar revenues, covering the years 1985 through 1999, are analysed to ascertain: (i) shifts in the channels of distribution; (ii) the future demand for university press books for the years 2000 through 2004; and (iii) the price elasticity of demand for these titles. Other issues addressed briefly include competition from commercial academic publishers, consolidation in the publishing industry, the rise in importance of the global market for university press books, and financial issues.     

The Beginnings of Radio Communication in Germany, 1897–1918

This article surveys the prehistory of broadcasting in the German Reich. It focuses on wireless telegraphy, where the Telefunken Company succeeded internationally with its quenched spark system on the eve of the war. Telefunken's system was developed as an efficient military technology between 1905 and 1908, and it soon became the core of Telefunken's successful attempt to break Marconi's monopoly in maritime radio communication. Encouraged by this success, Telefunken started to establish wireless transoceanic connections to build a global German radio network. The properties of radio broadcasting as a possible new mass medium only gradually became evident before 1918.     

The Diversification of Russian Scholarly Publishing, 1995–2005

SUMMARY

Russian scholarly publication has doubled since 1995, led by private scholarly imprints, which have tripled. The increase in the publication of monographs, in which private publishers now dominate, is particularly noticeable. The majority of private scholarly publication is in history and literary studies, but private presses account for a relatively larger share of publications in philosophy and religion. Scholarly publishing is to a considerable extent funded by a robust network of government and private foundations.     

XIth World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists/2005 Biennial Conference of the United States Agricultural Information Network,Radisson Plaza Hotel,Lexington, KY,May 16–18, 2005

ABSTRACT

The author reviews the XIth World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists/2005 Biennial Conference of the United States Agricultural Information Network held in Lexington, KY, in May 2005     

The radio diary of Mary Dyck, 1936–1955: The listening habits of a Kansas farm woman

From the earliest days of the radio era, the United States Department of Agriculture recognized radio's potential importance to rural families. What the USDA did not realize until later was radio's enormous significance to rural women. This article uses the diary of Kansas farm woman Mary Knackstedt Dyck (1884–1955) to trace the vital importance of radio to isolated farm women. Radio provided these women with information, entertainment, and religious programming. For individuals living literally at the margins of society, it provided a crucial link to the world beyond the farm and was a source of human contact that was otherwise unavailable.     

Boys to Men: Age,Identity, and the Legitimation of Amateur Wireless in the United States, 1909–1927

Although amateur radio remained popular for 100 years, it faced a crisis of legitimacy during the 1910s. The damaging behaviors of some operators threatened amateurs with banishment from the airwaves. Through an analysis of archival material from various sources, this paper demonstrates that in order to distance themselves from the actions of malevolent pranksters, responsible wireless operators tapped into contemporary cultural debates about maturity and the emergence of adolescence. As a result, amateur operators legitimated themselves in the eyes of the public while carving out a distinct space for youth hobbyists.     

A Decade of Coverage (1990–2000): The Mainstream Library Press and Its Coverage of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and Its Successor States

ABSTRACT

This study examines the coverage of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and its successor states by U.S. journals indexed in Library Literature between 1990 and 2000. Seventy-one journals were evaluated according to subject content, geographical coverage, document type, and year of article publication. The study found that the majority of articles focused on domestic and foreign library activities. Coverage peaked between the years 1990 and 1994, with a steady decline after that. The study reports on differences in coverage by peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed journals over this decade.     

What's So Funny About a Poke in the Eye? The Prevalence of Violence in Comedy Films and Its Relation to Social and Economic Threat in the United States, 1951-2000

We examined the violent content of the top-grossing comedy films from 1951 to 2000. Comedic violence increased sharply around 1970 and has been relatively consistent since then. Aggressors were depicted in somewhat more positive terms than targets, but in general, the message of comedic violence was not one of good triumphing over evil. Top-grossing comedy films featured more violence when unemployment, suicide, homicide, divorce, and the consumer price index were higher.     

“The King Is Dead,Long Live The King!”: Image of the United States as the Primary Enemy on the Pages of Krokodil from Stalin to Khrushchev

The relationship between the Soviet Union and United States during the early Cold War has been analyzed from many different angles, but the research's primary focus has been on the political events that occurred and the statements made by political figures. Many scholars have looked at the Khrushchev period of Soviet history; however, a lack of attention has been paid to the role of the media as a mirror of political processes. Even fewer studies compare media realities across the Stalin and Khrushchev periods. Although a strongly declared attempt to cooperate with the Western world was the key characteristic of Khrushchev's Thaw, this study assumes that the true approach of the Soviet political establishment toward the United States was even more radical than Stalin's approach. A semiotic textual analysis of the cartoons of the Krokodil illustrated satirical magazine has found a trend of negative visual portrayals of the United States as the primary enemy of the citizens of the Soviet Union.

This article alludes to dozens of cartoon images. Figures labelled with an ‘o’ are available for reference on vcquarterly.org.