Publications and Communications Board 2011 Annual Report

The Publications and Communications Board (P&C) and the Office of Publications and Databases (OPD) addressed challenges and opportunities surrounding changes in the scholarly publishing and current economic climates to finish the year meeting its publishing goals for electronic resources, books, videos and journals.

Under the direction of the P&C Board and to fulfill APA’s global mission of disseminating psychological science, the Office of Publications and Databases had a record year in terms of production and improved services for print and electronic alike. Total revenue for APA’s core scholarly and professional publishing program (APA Journals, APA Books, Publication Manual, PsycINFO abstracts, PsycARTICLES full-text, PsycTESTS, PsycTHERAPY, PsycBOOKS, PsycEXTRA, PsycCRITIQUES and PsycNET platform) exceeded $80 million in 2011.

• At the 2011 APA Annual Convention, the P&C Board contributed eight programming hours. Programming included “How to Publish with APA Books,” “How to Review a Manuscript,” “Finding Tests and Measures: Introducing the PsycTESTS Database,” “How to Publish Your Manuscript,” “Writing Abstracts to Get Your Research Noticed,” “Increasing Your Research Productivity with the APA Databases,” and “Writing with APA Style.” The average attendance for main sessions was 115.

• In 2011, the Reference division of APA Books released the second and third multivolume reference sets in the new APA Handbooks in Psychology™ series, the two-volume "APA Handbook of Ethics in Psychology" (Samuel J. Knapp, Editor-in-Chief) and the three-volume "APA Educational Psychology Handbook." Each multivolume set is headed by a small editorial board, whose members formalize the structure and content and serve as peer reviewers for all chapters and associated materials. The handbooks are available both in print and in electronic replication, available only via the PsycNET platform. Additionally, in conjunction with APA IT, Reference deployed a dictionary enhancement feature to PsycARTICLES in April and released the "APA Concise Dictionary of Psychology" app for iPhone, iPad and Android in December.

• "The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition," maintained strong sales in 2011, with total revenue of approximately $8.2 million. The second APA Style online course was released: The Basics of APA Style: An Online Course, which is available for four CE credits, helps students learn the basics of APA Style and is organized by sections that reflect the order of topics in the sixth edition of the Publication Manual. Efforts to inform and serve the APA Style audience were extended through regular postings on the APA Style blog, which has been visited by more than 1.3 million people, and through postings on Facebookopens in new window^© (more than 8,000 fans) and Twitteropens in new window^© (more than 5,500 followers).

• APA Books released 48 new titles in 2011, including:

  • "Caring for Veterans With Deployment-Related Stress Disorders: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond" (Josef Ruzek et al., Editors)

  • "Young Children With ADHD: Early Identification and Intervention" by George DuPaul and Lee Kern

  • "Rehabilitating Sexual Offenders: A Strength-Based Approach" by William Marshall et al.

  • "Malpractice in Psychology: A Practical Resource for Clinicians" by David Shapiro and Steven Smith

  • "Consensual Qualitative Research: A Practical Resource for Investigating Social Science Phenomena" (Clara Hill, Ed.)

  • "Treating Dementia in Context: A Step-by Step Guide to Working With Caregivers and Families" by Susan McCurry and Claudia Drossel

  • "The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making" (Valerie Reyna et al., Eds.)

  • "High Stakes Testing in Education: Science and Practice in K-12 Settings" (James Bovaird et al., Eds.)

  • "The Immigrant Paradox in Children and Adolescents: Is Becoming American a Developmental Risk?" (Cynthia Garcia-Coll and Amy Marks, Eds.)

  • "Dynamic Network Theory: How Social Networks Influence Goal Pursuit" by James Westaby

  • "Multicultural Care: A Clinician’s Guide to Cultural Competence" by Lillian Comas-Diaz

  • "Conviction of the Innocent: Lessons From Psychological Research" (Brian Cutler, Ed.)

• "Rehabilitating Sexual Offenders: A Strength-Based Approach" by William L. Marshall, Liam E. Marshall, Geris Serran, and Matt O’Brien won the Society for Sex Therapy and Research’s 2012 Health Professional Book Award. The committee commended the book’s “superb integration of therapy and research,” and the fact that it “represents an important departure from the traditional approach in the treatment of sex offenders, moving the field from a 'correctional' mindset to a psychotherapy framework.”

• APA Books also added four new volumes to the Theories of Psychotherapy series: "Cognitive Therapy," by Keith Dobson; "Career Counseling," by Mark Savickas; "Behavior Therapy," by Martin Antony; and "Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy," by Albert Ellis.

• In 2011, APA Books has released 20 titles in Kindle editions.

• APA Books added 12 new titles to the APA Psychotherapy Video Series, including "Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy for Clients With Anxiety and Panic," with Bunmi O. Olatunji; and "Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy for Clients Dealing With Infidelity," with Sue Johnson.

• APA’s children’s book imprint, Magination Press, released 13 titles in 2011, including: "Good Night Giants"; "Russell’s World: A Story for Kids About Autism"; "Max Archer, Kid Detective: The Case of the Wet Bed"; "My Diary: The Totally True Story of ME!"; "On Your Own: A College Readiness Guide for Teens with ADHD/LD"; "Shy Spaghetti and Excited Eggs: A Kid’s Menu of Feelings"; "Why Are You So Scared? A Child’s Book about Parents With PTSD"; "Chillax: How Ernie Learns to Chill Out, Relax, and Take Charge of his Anger"; "New Kid, New Scene: A Guide to Moving and Switching Schools"; "How to Feel Good: 20 Things Teens Can Do"; "Mighty Mike Bounces Back: A Boy’s Life With Epilepsy"; "My Life By Me: A Kid’s Forever Book"; and "The Flyaway Blanket."

• In 2011, APA Books Subsidiary Rights Office negotiated 88 licenses for the translation of APA Books into Arabic, Complex and Simple Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, and Vietnamese.

• During 2011, PsycINFO added 176,000 new records to the overall database. At the end of the year, the database contained 3.193 million records.

• In September 2011, two new APA databases—PsycTESTS and PsycTHERAPY—were officially launched. On release, the PsycTESTS database contained a total of 2,261 records, 2,018 master profiles for a test name, and 1,528 tests. Currently, there are 3,100 test records, 2,800 master records, and 2,100 tests. Although most of the tests are textual files, some are multimedia. One test can have multiple records, because it may be described in a document about its development, in one that reviews the test, or in one that describes a new way of using the test (different population or type of setting). PsycTHERAPY contains 300 videos of therapy demonstrations that were created in conjunction with the APA Psychotherapy Video Series, and provide the main content of the database. Each video is coded with index terms and metadata about the participants, the session content, and therapeutic approaches demonstrated. The videos have been transcribed word-for-word, and the transcripts scroll in synch with the video playback of the therapy demonstration. In successive years, the database will be updated biannually with 40-80 hours of new therapy demonstrations. PsycTHERAPY is completely searchable, both on the basis of the index terms and metadata, and also within the transcripts. In addition, users may create playlists of videos or clips from within videos, and these may be shared with a class or with the user’s immediate institution. This database is expected to become a popular teaching tool in universities and training institutes.

• The number of journals covered by PsycINFO at the end of 2011 was 2,500, an increase from 2010. Seventy-two titles were added; a systematic review of covered journals also resulted in dropping some journal titles for non-receipt or irregular publication.

• PsycARTICLES includes “Online First Publication” articles within 30 days after the accepted manuscripts have been received at APA. These articles have gone through the full production process, including author approval, and are lacking only assignment to a volume and issue. The P&C Board has designated these as “versions of record.” More than 3,000 articles were released as Online First Publication between January and December, and the lag time to publication has been dramatically reduced. Approximately 2,000 articles “graduated” to bound issues. When the article is included in a bound issue, the original Online First PDF is replaced by a paginated PDF and HTML rendition, and a corrected PsycINFO record that includes volume, issue, pagination, and indexing is released.

• PsycARTICLES added six new titles and more than 5,000 articles in 2011. The number of articles numbered approximately 158,000 at the end of the year.

• APA continued to add books to PsycBOOKS from the Archives of the History of American Psychology (AHAP) at the University of Akron. These psychology books in the public domain books have been scanned for inclusion in the database and a digital copy provided to AHAP. As a result of the AHAP project, there are now approximately 120 books from the 17th and 18th centuries, including a book by Saint Augustine on the City of God from 1620. There are 1,000 books from the 19th century. At the end of the year, PsycBOOKS contained more than 3,000 books and 47,000+ chapters, including APA books through July 2011 as well as the historical books.

• PsycINFO staff continued to expand the use of social media to inform the world about APA’s electronic databases and the APA PsycNET platform. They have posted regular comments on Facebook^© and Twitter^©. By year’s end more than 80 brief training videos were posted to YouTube© with links on the APA website and Facebook©. About five dozen podcasts were available as well. Visit the APA PsycNET Twitteropens in new window^© page. To view any of the videos, users can visit APA Databases or Facebookopens in new window^©.

• APA continued to expand its training program to support the databases on the various platforms with on-site training at conferences and multiple webinars weekly in addition to the video tutorials. By the end of the year, staff had provided training to more than 800 librarians, APA members, APA staff, and others. The librarians represented nearly 400 institutions.

• The APA Library Advisory Council met twice in 2011. Among their discussion items were support for multiple formats of ebooks, particularly for smartphones; their preference for electronic communication from publishers; increasing need for videos that are in streaming format with embedded keywords, competency tagging, usage data, and MARC records; provision of learning objects that can be added to course management systems; and the increasing trend toward patron-driven acquisition., including directors, bibliographers, psychology specialists, collection development, electronic resource specialists, and consortia representatives. Council members have provided OPD staff with vital input regarding product features, pricing strategies, training and education, and policies regarding usage of electronic products.

• APA presented David Baker, PhD, with the 2011 APA Award for Excellence in Librarianship. Dr. Baker is the director of the Center for the History of Psychology, which includes the Archives for the History of American Psychology. Staff at the library of the University of Akron nominated him, and members of the APA Library Advisory Council selected him from a pool of highly qualified individuals. Although he is a psychologist, rather than a librarian, the librarians on the selection committee felt he stood out in his services to librarianship.

• PsycINFO indexed approximately 5,000 website pages in 2011 for the APA website. 

• APA Journals published over 38,500 pages in 2010 in 59 journals.

• APA Journals published a total of more than 3,300 articles in 300 journal issues.

• In early 2011, APA launched an APA Journals app available free of charge for the iPhone or iPad. It enables users to view the tables-of-contents to all APA published journal issues as well as track any content published online first. The app has already been downloaded nearly 20,000 times.

• In August 2011, at the APA Annual Convention in Washington, DC, APA released sample issues of four new journals to be published in 2012:

  • Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice (official journal of APA Division 43)
  • Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology (official journal of APA Division 47) 
  • Psychology of Popular Media Culture
  • International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation (official journal of APA Division 52)
    
    

• In 2011, APA Journals published more than 30 special issues or sections of journals.  The following are some examples of special issues:

  • Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (February 2011) – "Psychological Services for Veterans and Military Service Members and Their Families"
  • Psychotherapy (March 2011) – "Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Relationships"
  • History of Psychology (August 2011) – "Psychology, Politics, and Public Policy"
  • Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy (September 2011) – "Trauma-Focused Training and Education"
  • American Psychologist (September 2011) – "9/11: Ten Years Later"

• The P&C Board is pleased to announce these editorial appointments in 2011, naming the following to six-year terms to begin in 2012 as the editor-elect year (and 2013 as the beginning masthead year).

  • Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
    Robert L. Greene, PhD (2013–2018)
    Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland

  • Professional Psychology: Research and Practice
    Ronald T. Brown, PhD, ABPP (2013–2018)
    Wayne State University, Detroit 

  • Psychology and Aging
    Ulrich Mayr, PhD (2013–2018)
    Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Ore.

  • Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
    Michael E. Lamb, PhD (2013–2018)
    University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

  • School Psychology Quarterly
    Shane R. Jimerson, PhD (2013–2016)*
    University of California, Santa Barbara
    
    *Dr. Jimerson will serve a four-year term

• The P&C Board opened five searches in 2011 for the following journals:

  • Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

  • Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

  • Neuropsychology

  • Psychological Methods

  • Psychology and Decision Making 

Consortia sales of APA databases and electronic products during 2011 included the following:

• As of year-end 2011, the marketing programs for electronic products, books, and journals contributed to and supported product sales efforts by collectively producing 167 direct mail campaigns, seven catalogs, 82 email campaigns, 298 paid advertisements, 82 house advertisements, one telemarketing campaign, 15 press releases, 1,700 book publicity mailings, and booth displays at on-site exhibitions and product displays handled by outside vendors at additional conferences. In combination, all such efforts resulted in more than 10 million promotional exposures for the year.

• Through year-end 2011, the Exhibitions Marketing program organized booth displays at 43 conferences, both in the U.S. and internationally, with a combined attendance of nearly 620,000. Books and journals were promoted at an additional 46 conferences handled by outside vendors.