UWA Publishing, formerly known as the Text Books Board and then University of Western Australia Press, is a Western Australian publisher established in 1935 by the University of Western Australia. It produces a range of non-fiction and fiction titles.

Background and establishment

Australia's first scholarly publisher was Melbourne University Press, established in 1922.Fitzgerald, Criena (2005) ''A press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press, 1935-2004'' Crawley, W.A.: University of Western Australia Press The

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

proposed an Australia-wide university press at the 1932 Universities Conference, but the Melbourne press did not support this idea. University students' ongoing difficulties with obtaining textbooks were common at the time, and the Australian universities had different ways of addressing the issue. During the 1920s, the University of Western Australia (UWA) appointed several booksellers, who each reported that selling textbooks was not commercially viable due to low student numbers (in 1935, UWA had 787 students, compared to 3,497 at Melbourne and 1,090 at Queensland). UWA's vice-chancellor, Hubert Whitfeld, believed that "Australian universities ought to publish very much more than they do", and established the Text Books Board in 1935 with support from academics Walter Murdoch and Fred Alexander. It was known as the Text Books Board until 1948, when it took on the name University of Western Australia Press.

Late 20th century

Scholarly publishing at the UWA Press continually struggled to be commercially viable. The market was small and the press was isolated from other cities and markets. Subsidised journals were published during the 1960s for UWA's departments, which were time consuming for press staff and despite the subsidies, rarely met their costs. Production of the journals ended in 1973. During the 1970s, textbooks were replaced with "recommended readings", and students no longer needed to purchase textbooks. During the 1980s, advances in

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The e ...

processes reduced the cost of printing books, but the rising popularity of

photocopiers A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers u ...

saw

lecturers Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct res ...

create course readers to save students time and money. Course readers contain photocopies of journal articles, book chapters and monographs, specific to a particular course or topic. Several university presses in Australia closed during the 1980s, and the UWA Press's

grant Grant or Grants may refer to: Places *Grant County (disambiguation) Australia * Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia United Kingdom *Castle Grant United States * Grant, Alabama * Grant, Inyo County, ...

and staff levels were reduced.

21st century

The press combined with the Western Australian History Foundation in 2000 to offer the WA History Foundation Award, which encourages and publishes works on Western Australian history. The first work published was ''Blood Sweat and Welfare: A History of White Bosses and Aboriginal Pastoral Workers'' by Mary Anne Jebb. In 2000, it started publishing a quarterly

newsletter A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of i ...

, which includes new books. ''In print: a quarterly newsletter'' Nedlands, W.A. : UWA Press Club, Issue no.1 Winter 2000- In 2001, the press selected the Eurospan Group to promote and distribute their books in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East. In 2004, it ran a series of articles on the members of the board. The organisation celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2005, and gave an opportunity to post-graduate students to have their manuscripts published. Fiction series editor Terri-ann White explained, "We're looking for literary fiction, so that's the distinction. We're not looking for mass market." The press approached Australian university coordinators in

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

courses for recommendations of the work of post-graduate students in

PhDs A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

and master's degrees. The publishing house changed its name to UWA Publishing in 2009.

Dorothy Hewett Award

In 2015 it established the Dorothy Hewett Award (in honour of the writer

Dorothy Hewett Dorothy Coade Hewett (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002) was an Australian playwright, poet and author, and a romantic feminist icon. In writing and in her life, Hewett was an experimenter. As her circumstances and beliefs changed, she progressed ...

) for an unpublished completed manuscript of fiction, narrative non-fiction or poetry. In the inaugural edition of the award in 2016,

Josephine Wilson Josephine Wilson, Baroness Miles (5 July 1904 – 7 November 1990) was a British stage and film actress. She was the wife of Bernard Miles andHare p.195 creator of the Molecule Club, which staged scientific shows for children at the Mermaid Thea ...

won the award for her second novel, ''Extinctions''.,

Kyra Giorgi Kyra Giorgi (born 1977) is an Australian author and historian. Early life and career Kyra Giorgi was born in Perth Western Australia—her mother is the novelist Gail Jones. Giorgi took her PhD in history from La Trobe University in 2012 with ...

's manuscript for her first novel, ''The Circle and the Equator'' was Highly Commended. In February 2018

Julie Watts Julie Watts (born 1950) is an Australian author and publisher. She won the Dromkeen Medal in 2001. Early life Watts was born in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her mother worked in a second-hand bookshop after Julie was born. Career Watts' first ...

won the award for ''Legacy'', an unpublished manuscript of collected poems.

Reduced output

In November 2019 the University of Western Australia announced its plans to close UWA Publishing. In 2020, the university announced that UWA Publishing would continue to produce literary works, operating under a hybrid publishing model with internal management re-aligned to the University Library.

References

External links

UWAP web site