Booksmart

• Cranberry Red (UW Press, 2010)
  Jerry Apps, professor emeritus of continuing and vocational education.
• Learning at the Back Door: Reflections on Non-Traditional Learning in the Lifespan
  (UW Press, 2010; originally published in hardcover in 1981)
  Charles Wedemeyer (1911–1999), William H. Lighty Professor of Education.

When Charles Wedemeyer pioneered new methods of distance education, he could not have foreseen some of the innovations available today.

Wedemeyer, who died in 1999, enjoyed a 40-year career at UW–Madison and UW–Extension. In his quest to reach those for whom education could only come “through the back door,” his work included radio lessons in the 1930s and armed forces instruction for sailors deployed in the 1940s, and his work with satellite technology helped model education in universities all over the world.

How appropriate, then, that one of Wedemeyer’s own books should get new life in e-book format.

“Even though this book had been published in 1981, we found out that people still wanted it,” says Chris Caldwell, publicity manager for UW Press. “This format can keep the content alive when it might not be so easy to print 10,000 or 15,000 books. I suspect that we’ll see more of this in the future.”

Readable on e-readers (such as the Kindle, Nook or Sony Reader), on computers or even on certain mobile phones, the e-book format brings portability and increased access to works that might often be difficult to find. The software used creates a file that preserves the look of a page. By design, it allows the work to be printed, copied and shared between multiple devices if needed. Perhaps of greatest interest to many customers: most devices allow readers to use any size of type.

UW Press, at the forefront of this movement among university presses, now releases digital editions of nearly every new offering. Though the format doesn’t work for all books — like some with extensive art prints, or edited collections of previously published work — Caldwell says that the vast majority come out simultaneously.

One upcoming electronic-only release, on rhyming in the works of Alexander Pushkin, harnesses the power of the format to easily search what would otherwise be a massive volume. Author J. Thomas Shaw, emeritus professor of Slavic languages and literature, can provide this resource directly to his small but passionate audience. Having a just-in-time inventory allows the press to provide the file as needed — not just to dedicated scholars, but to libraries and students seeking reserved material for a class. Wedemeyer would approve.

Even emeritus professor and UW Press author Jerry Apps, whose novels sometimes lament the loss of old ways, is a convert. In a page on the UW Press Web site introducing the new e-book capabilities, he writes that he appreciates the convenience and portability of his e-reader, a welcome companion — not replacement — for the physical books he loves.

One upcoming title that readers might enjoy: Apps’own “Cranberry Red,” the fourth novel in his Ames County series. It will be released in October in hardcover and, yes, e-book format.