Charge to the Editorial Board of Stanford University Press

Charge to the Editorial Board of Stanford University Press

The Editorial Board of the University Press, under the general guidelines for committees outlined in the President's letter, shall advise and consult with the Director of the University Press on the general publishing program of the Press, and shall seek to maintain the highest standards of excellence for all publications which bear the imprint of the University Press.

The following guidelines are established to enable the University Press to publish scholarly books of high quality, and to publish them well:

1. The Editorial Board shall approve in advance all books and other publications published under the imprint of the Stanford University Press.
2. The Editorial Board shall seek to insure the integrity of the book-form and, in particular, shall guard the Press imprint from use for essentially honorific or promotional purposes, or for purposes equally well-served by journals or other publication media. Festschriften come under this general ban; so do most conference proceedings.
3. The emphasis of the Press is on the publication of new scholarship. However, the Press also occasionally publishes textbooks, manuals, and other synthetic works, as well as translations, anthologies, field guides, reissues of out-of- print works, and books intended for a general, non-scholarly market; such works shall be consistent with high standards of scholarship and intellection and vetted by senior scholars in essentially the same way as original scholarly work, but judged by criteria that are appropriate to their genres.
4. Whereas any non-Stanford manuscript may be rejected by the Press staff without recourse to the Editorial Board, a Stanford faculty author has the option of insisting on an outside report and the further option of appealing an adverse decision by the Press staff to the Editorial Board. These faculty options apply only to book-length works of original scholarship, not to dissertations, reports, compilations, conference proceedings, edited works, translations, and the like.

The main task of the Editorial Board is to judge whether certain works of scholarship do or do not deserve to be published by the Press. Since that judgement depends in a large part on assessing the weight of confidential critiques by outside readers, members of the Editorial Board should be scholars of high standing in disciplines relevant to the Press's publishing program, about whom the Director shall be consulted. The Editorial Board shall consist of nine members of the Academic Council who shall serve for a one-year term, renewable up to three years or longer, if necessary for continuity . The Chair of the Board shall be one of the faculty members and shall be named by the President. The Director of the Press shall serve as an ex-officio member of the Board.

The Editorial Board shall meet at the call of the Director of the Press-though the Chair can of course convene the Board at his pleasure- monthly during the academic year, customarily on the second Tuesday of the month, at 4:l5 p.m. in the Press library. Faculty members considered for appointment to the Editorial Board should first be asked if their schedules permit them to attend the Board meetings.

The Director of the University Press shall be responsible for providing staff and secretarial assistance to the Editorial Board.

The Chair of the Board shall submit an annual report of its discussions, actions, and recommendations to the President of the University no later than August 1st of the committee year.