Chicago, Illinois—The second annual AAUP Constituency Award was presented to Harry Van Ierssel, Assistant Director, Finance, of University of Toronto Press, at the 1992 Annual Meeting in Chicago.
“Harry has contributed enormously to the well-being of many individual presses with his annual statistical survey and to the Association itself with his wise consul on financial matters,” says one colleague. “His efforts in both areas are clearly ‘beyond the call of duty.'”
Van Ierssel is perhaps most appreciated by the AAUP community for his development of the first annual business statistics survey, during his long tenure as chair of the Business Systems Committee. As Journals Committee chair, he also developed an annual journals questionnaire and statistics report. An active member, Van Ierssel has also served on the Statistics Committee and as Board Treasurer.
Van Ierssel has also participated in the wider world of scholarly publishing, both in Canada and abroad. He has served at times as treasurer for the Association of Canadian Publishers, for the Canadian Telebook Agency (an early online ordering service), for the Canadian Book and Periodical Council, for the Give the Gift of Literacy Foundation, and for the Association for the Export of Canadian Books. In 1989 he was the founding chairman of the Canadian Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee (the Canadian equivalent of BISAC). Van Ierssel has also devoted time to international projects on trade, finance, project management, and the continued development of scholarly publishing.
Read more about the history of the Constituency Award and see its complete Honor Roll.