University of MIchigan: Announcing the Backlist Digital Project

In 2017, the University of Michigan is celebrating its bicentennial. All year, a variety of commemorative events will be taking place across campus. Here at the University of Michigan Press/Michigan Publishing, we have launched our Backlist Digital Project, which features 200 titles that were published through the decades.

While the Press is younger than the university as a whole, we’ve been publishing books, in different iterations, for over one hundred years. In autumn 2016, we undertook a project to release paperback versions of 200 previously out-of-print backlist titles. In a year where we are proudly celebrating 200 years of excellence at University of Michigan, we are also gratified to showcase our own contribution to scholarship over the years. Many of the re-releases are in some of the press’s strongest disciplines, including theater, philosophy, and classical studies. Some highlights are “Around the Absurd: Essays on the Modern and Postmodern Drama” (originally published in 1990) and “Roman History and Mythology” (1910). Other books are on more unconventional topics, such as “Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan” (1939) and “Recurrent Maladies in Scholarly Writing” (1953).

Despite the word “Digital” in the name of the project, these books are currently only available in paperback. Through funding from collection development, they have been digitized from their original formats as page images.

There’s something for everyone! Check out our titles here: https://www.press.umich.edu/