Contact: Brenna McLaughlin, 212-989-1010 ext. 24, bmclaughlin@aaupnet.org

NEW YORK, July 6 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Association of American University Presses is proud to announce that Paul Murphy, Associate Director, Publications, RAND, is the recipient of the 2007 AAUP Constituency Award. The award was established in 1991 to honor staff at member presses who have demonstrated active leadership and service to the Association and the university press community.

Murphy's nomination was supported by many colleagues in the AAUP community who have benefited from his innovative leadership of the Association's Electronic Committee and his tireless efforts to help scholarly publishers benefit from new technologies.

One of the many efforts for which Murphy was recognized was the successful 2006 E-Publishing Workshop, organized as the culmination of his two years' heading the E-Committee. That workshop also saw the launch of the AAUPwiki, a powerful professional development tool his committee created to allow the entire AAUP community to share their expertise in all areas of scholarly communications.

Murphy continues to serve the Association both officially, as a member of the electronic committee, and unofficially, as an active contributor to the wiki and email lists, and - as it was put in a nomination letter - through "[motivating] others to engage and contribute ... it's a trait that is difficult to quantify, yet leads to results, creativity, and valuable information sharing."

The award was announced in Minneapolis at the 2007 AAUP Annual Meeting. In introducing the honoree, Michael Jensen, Director of Publishing Technologies at National Academies Press, explained: "This fellow woke [the e-committee] up again, added pep to the old dogs' dogfood, and got institutional innovation rolling again ... For as long as I've known him, he's been delighted to help people learn, understand, and implement new technologies in publishing. Throughout his decade with the AAUP, he has embodied the selflessness of purpose that I think is key to deserving the AAUP's Constituency Award."

Paul Murphy has over twenty-five years experience in scholarly and trade publishing. He is currently Associate Director of Publications for the RAND Corporation and has been with RAND since 1997. He has also worked as Director of Production at Knowledge Exchange LLC, a publisher of business books in Santa Monica, and at Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. (a subsidiary of Putnam Berkley), a mid-size publisher of general trade books in Los Angeles. Paul also was Associate Editor at Stewart, Tabori & Chang and was Editor at the Publishing Center for Cultural Resources, both in New York City.

Recent winners of the AAUP Constituency Award are: Jennifer Crewe, Columbia University Press (2006); Susan Schott, University Press of Kansas (2005); and Patrick Carroll, Princeton University Press (2004).

To read more about the AAUP Constituency Award and for a complete list of past honorees, visit: http://aaupnet.org/about/caward.html.

To visit the AAUPwiki, go to: http://aaupwiki.princeton.edu/.

The Association of American University Presses is the world's largest organization of not-for-profit scholarly publishers. Formally established in 1937, AAUP promotes the work and influence of its 128 university press members.

Learn more at http://www.aaupnet.org.