Barbara Kline Pope Begins Term as President of Scholarly Publishing Association
NEW YORK–Barbara Kline Pope, director of the National Academies Press in Washington, DC, assumed leadership of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) on June 24, 2014, at the association’s annual meeting. Pope will serve a one-year term as president, succeeding Philip Cercone, director of McGill-Queen’s University Press, who will remain on the AAUP board of directors.
AAUP, formally established in 1937, advances the essential role of a global community of more than 130 publishers whose mission is to ensure academic excellence and cultivate knowledge. As president of the association, Pope will serve as a spokesperson for and an advocate of member presses, and will work with the executive director and board of directors to set the direction and immediate goals for the organization. Pope has already contributed much to the AAUP community through a previous term on the AAUP board from 2009-2012, her service on the search committee for the new AAUP executive director in 2012, and her leadership throughout the association’s current strategic planning process. Pope’s election marks the first time that an associate member press of AAUP (those affiliated with non-degree granting organizations) serves as president.
Pope began her scholarly publishing career in marketing at the National Academies Press in 1983, where she has served as director since 1997. She currently holds a dual role as press director and executive director for communications for the National Academies.* At the press, she is responsible for an innovative and dynamic publishing operation of scholarly books that have been available for free online since 1995. As communications director, she manages marketing and communication programs designed to bring science to public audiences.
Pope’s research on business models for digital publishing won the prestigious INFORMS Society for Marketing Science Practice Prize and was published in Marketing Science. Her considerable knowledge and experience on this topic will help Pope guide the AAUP in a year of “Reimagining AAUP,” inaugurated by the introduction in June of a new strategic plan for the association. AAUP presidents traditionally deliver an address at the annual meeting, but Pope instead facilitated a plenary brainstorming session for participants to arrive at tactics for the new plan. As she set the stage for a highly interactive session, she urged all members and friends of AAUP to “tap into the power of our very own collective of diverse individuals, facing similar challenges, coming together for the common good of advancing scholarship to arrive at evolutionary and revolutionary ideas that will allow AAUP to soar.”
*The National Academies is the overarching name for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council.
Media Inquiries:
Regan Colestock
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