February 8, 2018
Top Scholarly Publishing Award Goes to Bloomsbury for Arcadian Library Online
2018 PROSE Award for Excellence winners include eProducts, journals and books reflecting the diversity of professional and scholarly publishing
Washington, DC; Feb. 8, 2018 – The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has announced the winners of the 2018 PROSE Awards (#PROSEAwards), the publishing industry’s highest honors for professional and scholarly works. Bloomsbury Publishing beat out 550 other entries to win the industry’s top honor – the R.R. Hawkins Award – for the Arcadian Library Online, a specially designed and expertly curated digital platform.
Bloomsbury Publishing partnered with the Arcadian Library to digitize its rich collection of rare ancient manuscripts and early books that document the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East. Having launched with the Arcadian Library’s History of Science and Medicine holdings, the Arcadian Library Online is interactive, mobile-responsive, and searchable in English and Arabic. The library perpetually preserves in digital format for future generations rare and historically important texts about agriculture, alchemy, astrology, health, disease, physiology, mathematics and physics, exploration and more.
Nigel Newton, Chief Executive, Bloomsbury Publishing, said, “I am pleased for both our Content Services division, who digitised the Arcadian Library’s collection and launched this award-winning digital archive platform, and our new Digital Resources division, who have taken Arcadian Library Online to academic and scholarly libraries and institutions worldwide and are bringing its riches to new generations at a time when the need for inter-cultural understanding has never been more acute.”
“I’m particularly impressed with Bloomsbury’s thoughtful approach to the digital representation of the collection. They were able to balance the need for digital function and convenience while at the same time preserving some sense of the physical interaction with the artifacts. It is a challenge that scholarly publishers will increasingly face in the digital era—ensuring that the medium amplifies rather distorts the message,” said Steven Heffner, Vice President of Product Strategy, Wolters Kluwer Health and Co-Chair of the 2018 PROSE Awards.
“The platform is superbly designed to fulfill the deeply worthy and opportune mission of the library and, as a result, the Arcadian Library Online is a thoroughly worthy winner of the 2018 R.R. Hawkins Award,” said Nigel Fletcher-Jones, Director of The American University in Cairo Press and Co-Chair of the 2018 PROSE Awards.
The 2018 PROSE Awards honor the best scholarly works published in 2017. Publishers submitted more than 550 books, journals and eProducts for consideration in 51 subject categories within five areas of excellence: Biological and Life Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences & Mathematics, Reference Works, and Social Sciences. Winners in each of the 51 subject categories then compete for an award for excellence.
The 2018 PROSE Awards Winners:
Biological & Life Sciences
Excellence in Biological & Life Sciences Winner:
MIT Press: Language in Our Brain: The Origins of a Uniquely Human Capacity
By Angela D. Friederici
Category winners include:
- Applied Social Work, Nursing & Allied Health: Elsevier/Academic Press for Innovative Approaches to Individual and Community Resilience: From Theory to Practice
- Biological Science: Princeton University Press for Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind
- Biomedicine & Neuroscience: The MIT Press for Language in Our Brain: The Origins of a Uniquely Human Capacity
- Clinical Medicine: Elsevier/Academic Press for Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine: Gender in the Genomic Era, Third Edition
Humanities
Excellence in Humanities Winner:
Oxford University Press: Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray
By Rosalind Rosenberg
Category winners include:
- Art Exhibitions: Getty Publications for Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas
- Art History & Criticism: Cambridge University Press for The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance
- Biography & Autobiography: Oxford University Press for Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray
- Biological Anthropology, Ancient History & Archaeology: University of Texas Press for Inka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources
- Classics: University of Texas Press for Classics from Papyrus to the Internet: An Introduction to Transmission and Reception
- European & World History: Princeton University Press for The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- Language & Linguistics: Harvard University Press for Numbers and the Making of Us: Counting and the Course of Human Cultures
- Literature: Princeton University Press for at Home in the World: Women Writers and Public Life, from Austen to the Present
- Music & the Performing Arts: Princeton University Press for The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart
- Media and Cultural Studies: University of Michigan Press for The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age
- Philosophy: The MIT Press for Understanding Ignorance: The Surprising Impact of What We Don’t Know
- Theology & Religious Studies: Yale University Press for Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle
- U.S. History: New York University Press for True Sex
- Outstanding Work by a Trade Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf for The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic
Physical Sciences & Mathematics
Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics Winner
Cell Press: CHEM (journal)
Robert D. Eagling, Editor-in-Chief
Category winners include:
- Chemistry & Physics: Cell Press for CHEM
- Computing & Information Sciences: Cambridge University Press for The Measure of All Minds: Evaluating Natural and Artificial Intelligence
- Cosmology & Astronomy: Cambridge University Press for Bayesian Models for Astrophysical Data Using R, JAGS, Python, and Stan
- Earth Science: Cambridge University Press for Earth History and Paleogeography
- Engineering & Technology: McGraw-Hill Education for Handbook of Applied Hydrology, Second Edition
- Environmental Science: Yale University Press for A Meeting of Land and Sea: Nature and the Future of Martha’s Vineyard
- History of Science, Technology & Medicine: The MIT Press for Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing
- Mathematics: American Mathematical Society for Harmonic Maass Forms and Mock Modular Forms: Theory and Applications
Reference Works, Textbooks and Journals
Excellence in Reference Works Winner
Bloomsbury Publishing: Arcadian Library Online
By The Arcadian Library/Bloomsbury Publishing
Category winners include:
- Popular Science & Popular Mathematics: Princeton University Press Mariposas Nocturnas for Moths of Central and South America, A Study in Beauty and Diversity
- Multivolume Reference/Humanities & Social Sciences: Cambridge University Press for The Cambridge History of Communism
- Single Volume Reference/Humanities & Social Sciences: Cambridge University Press for The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium
- Single Volume Reference/Science: Oxford University Press forThe Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions
- Multivolume Reference/Science: John Wiley & Sons for Encyclopedia of Physical Organic Chemistry
- Textbook/Biological and Life Sciences: Taylor & Francis for Protein Actions
- Textbook/Clinical Medicine: Thieme Publishers for Color Atlas of Brainstem Surgery
- Textbook/Humanities: Bloomsbury Publishing for A Practical Guide to Studying History: Skills and Approaches
- Textbook/Physical Sciences and Mathematics: Princeton University Press for Modern Classical Physics: Optics, Fluids, Plasmas, Elasticity, Relativity, and Statistical Physics
- Textbook/Social Sciences: Elsevier/Academic Press for Forensic Science Reform: Protecting the Innocent
- eProducts: Bloomsbury Publishing for Arcadian Library Online
- Best New Journal in Biological and Life Sciences: SAGE Publishing for JDR Clinical & Transitional Research
- Best New Journal in Physical Sciences and Mathematics: Cell Press for CHEM
- Best New Journal in Social Sciences: SAGE Publishing for Communication & Sport
- Innovation in Journal Publishing: Humanities and Social Sciences: RIT Press for HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America
- Innovation in Journal Publishing: Science, Technology and Medicine: American Society of Clinical Oncology for Journal of Global Oncology
- Innovation in Journal Publishing: Multidisciplinary: Oxford University Press for GigaScience
Social Sciences
Excellence in Social Sciences Winner
Princeton University Press: Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought
By Andrew W. Lo
Category winners include:
- Architecture & Urban Planning: Princeton University Press for Designing San Francisco: Art, Land, and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay
- Business, Finance & Management: Princeton University Press for Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought
- Cultural Anthropology & Sociology: University of Toronto Press for Lissa: A Story about Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution
- Economics: The MIT Press for The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy
- Education Practice: The MIT Press for Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers and Play
- Education Theory: Emerald Publishing for The Century of Science: The Global Triumph of the Research University
- Government & Politics: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press for Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America
- Law & Legal Studies: New York University Press for The Rise of Big Data Policing
- Psychology: Princeton University Press for The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice
Publishers with honorable mentions this year include
American Mathematical Society, The American University in Cairo Press, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Bloomsbury Publishing, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, Elsevier, Johns Hopkins University Press, Little Brown & Company, The MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, Routledge/Taylor & Francis, Springer Publishing Company, Stanford University Press, Teachers College Press, Thieme Publishers, and Wolters Kluwer.
About the R.R. Hawkins and PROSE Awards
The R.R. Hawkins Award was created in 1976 to recognize the most outstanding scholarly work in all disciplines of the arts and sciences and the ultimate winner of a given year’s PROSE Award competition. For 42 years, the PROSE Awards have recognized the best books, journals and digital content produced by professional and scholarly publishers. The awards are reviewed by a panel of 18 judges including editors, academics, publishers and research librarians for each works contribution to professional and scholarly publishing.
About the Association of American Publishers (AAP)
AAP | The Association of American Publishers represents the leading book, journal, and education publishers in the United States on matters of law and policy, advocating for outcomes that incentivize the publication of creative expression, professional content, and learning solutions. As essential participants in local markets and the global economy, our members invest in and inspire the exchange of ideas, transforming the world we live in one word at a time.
Find us online at publishers.org or on twitter at @AmericanPublish.