TAMU Press Subject of Short Film

"Collective Imagination" is a new, documentary-style, short-film from Dimensions, the Texas A&M University System's video news series.

Texas A&M University Press Director Charles Backus discusses the press's role of capturing, evaluating, authenticating, editing, organizing, and presenting scholarly and general interest works.

Host Rubén Olague interviews staff, attends launch and faculty advisory committee meetings, and visits with two of our esteemed authors to tell the fascinating story of our press, and the various stages of publishing a book.

Here, Texas A&M University Press Editor-in-Chief Mary Lenn Dixon, discusses the 'So What?' question that is so crucial to our manuscript selection process:

"If they can explain to themselves and to me why it matters that they've done the research they've done, or written the story that they've written, then I can assume it's going to appeal to other people, too. But a lot of times you can just get interested in something and want to know it, but it really doesn't matter in the long run. So, the 'so what' question is a very important one."

View the film in its entirety here.

Rubén thumbs through The Country Houses of John F. Staub (Texas A&M University Press, 2007).