News Release
Johns Hopkins Press Kathleen Keane, who has had a distinguished career of more than 20 years in health sciences and scholarly publishing, has been appointed director of The Johns Hopkins University Press. She had served as interim director since Jan. 1, when James Jordan stepped down to become director of Columbia University Press. Keane joined the JHU Press in September 2002 as director of finance and operations. In that role, Keane had direct responsibility for accounting, information systems, and Hopkins Fulfillment Services, the Press' book distribution service center. Before that, she held executive positions at J.B Lippincott Co. (a subsidiary of Harper and Row Publishers) and at W.B. Saunders (a division of Harcourt).She now becomes the seventh director to lead America's oldest university press. "The Press just last year celebrated its 125th anniversary, and that event brought its past successes into the minds of many here at Johns Hopkins," Keane said. "I am looking forward to the opportunity to lead us forward into the next era. Certainly, we can't replicate the past — the markets are different, and the world is different — but I think there is a strong base and plenty of room to enhance what is here." Winston Tabb, dean of university libraries at Johns Hopkins and chair of the search committee that recommended Keane, said the group was unanimous in its belief that she was the ideal person to lead the Johns Hopkins Press. "Her experience both at the Press and in the area of commercial publishing before she came to Johns Hopkins seemed to provide the ideal preparation for someone who must be sensitive to the needs of scholars and scholarship while also keeping the Press operating on the soundest possible financial footing," Tabb said. Keane is a 1972 graduate of Connecticut College. She earned her master of arts degree in English, with a specialization in modern English literature, from Catholic University of America in 1973. In 1979, she received an M.B.A. from the Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. Prior to coming to Johns Hopkins, Keane served as executive vice president of operations and chief publishing officer at Harcourt Health Sciences in Philadelphia, a division of Harcourt Inc. At Harcourt, Keane was responsible for all health sciences books, including major textbooks and reference books in medicine, nursing and allied health; journals; and database publishing. JHU Press is the oldest academic press in the country. Founded in 1878 at the behest of Johns Hopkins' first president, Daniel Coit Gilman, it began its life as the Publishing Agency, an entity created to provide scholarly journals for the fledgling university and its faculty. To date, the Press has published more than 5,000 titles. Today, in addition to scholarly books, journals and monographs, the Press publishes works for a general audience, including health, regional history, and trade reference books. In 1995, the Press, in collaboration with the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, launched Project MUSE to offer the full text of its scholarly journals via the Web. Currently, Project MUSE offers nearly 250 journal titles from more than 30 scholarly publishers, covering the fields of literature and criticism, history, political science, the visual and performing arts, and many others. Note: Photographs of Kathleen Keane are available; contact Dennis O'Shea.
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