Dear Colleague, My report on the PSA meeting is to your left. TO VIEW PHOTOS, PLEASE SCROLL DOWN.

PUBLISHERS EXHIBITING AT THE PSA MEETING: Bayou Publishing Brill U. of British Columbia Press U. of California Press Cengage Learning Charles C Thomas, Publisher U. of Chicago Press Cognella Academic Publishing Cornell U. Press Edwin Mellen Press Golden Pine Press IOS Press Kendall Hunt Publishing Co. Lyceum Books Lynne Rienner Publishers Metropolitan Books Nehora Press The New Press Oxford U. Press PM Press Polity Random House Rutgers U. Press SAGE Publications Springer SBM Stanford U. Press SUNY Press Temple U. Press Transaction Publishers Verso Books Wiley World Scientific Publishing Co. WW Norton & Co.

87th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) March 30-April 2, 2016, Oakland, CA The annual PSA meeting is one of the largest and most popular sociological conferences. Attendees at this year’s conference discussed the fundamental link between theory and practice in Sociology, and how understanding underlying causes, informed by applied research, can lead to practical solutions to social problems. Over 1,000 attended.

Once again we worked with PSA’s Executive Director Lora Bristow and Volunteer Coordinator Tina Burdsall. Dean Dorn, “Mr. PSA” to many, was back, but only as an attendee: this year’s Executive Committee meeting, he said, was the first he hadn’t attended in 26 years!

The Oakland Marriott City Center welcomed us back for the 2016 conference (this was our third PSA meeting at the hotel). The book exhibit was located outside the Junior Ballroom on the second floor. This year was a particularly cozy affair, with conference registration, PSA’s silent auction, and attending presses SAGE and California all together.

Centrally located and highly visible, the book exhibit received a steady flow of attendees throughout the four-day conference. Many of the 1000 scholars and students attending visited the book exhibit multiple times to look over and discuss the books on display.

Our exhibit consisted of 10 tables, providing us ample space to exhibit publishers’ titles and promotional materials. We displayed and promoted 418 titles from 33 publishers. Catalogues and order forms—free for attendees to take—had their own table, as did textbooks for course adoption request.

Polity was our largest exhibitor, sending 194 titles. Their books were hugely popular: many people commented on their impressive range of topics.

Given Polity’s strong Sociology list, it came as a surprise when several people said they had never heard of the press—as they quickly copied the website address into their notebooks. Professors were particularly happy to find their books, for both their quality and price. These, they said, were texts their students could afford.

PSA hosted a number of Author-Meets-Critics sessions, with attendees particularly taken with Jason Moore’s Capitalism in the Web of Life (Verso) and Marisol Clark-Ibañez’s Undocumented Latino Youth (Lynne Rienner). Michael Messner, Tal Peretz and Max Greenberg received the 2016 Distinguished Scholarship Award for Some Men (Oxford). And with a thematic session on Jonathan Turner’s work, lots of people were looking at his Springer SBM titles.

The two most popular titles this year were Undocumented Latino Youth (Lynne Rienner) and The Latinos of Asia (Stanford). Rienner’s Introducing Disability Studies and My Dog Always Eats First, and Stanford’s SNAP Matters, Staged Seduction and ¡Tequila! got a lot of attention as well.

Titles by Cornell (Buttoned Up and Women without Men) and The New Press (Pushout, Social Stratification in the United States and When we Fight, We Win) also caught the eyes of attendees.

Other publishers whose books proved popular were Brill, British Columbia, Chicago, PM Press, Random House, SUNY, Temple and Verso.

Professors took advantage of our textbooks for adoption display, placing many requests for Cengage, Pearson and Cognella titles.

As usual, Library of Social Science invited publishers to send their own representatives. The University of California Press and SAGE Publications joined us this year. Will Vincent was California’s “front of house,” while editors Seth Dobrin and Naomi Schneider roamed the conference, attending sessions and meeting with authors. SAGE was represented by Christa Walker, who had a steady stream of attendees getting to know their journals, including PSA’s official Sociological Perspectives.

We once again provided Mark Bird, author of 700 Laws in Sociology (Pearson), space in the exhibit where he could meet with attendees and discuss his book with them.

And continuing our tradition, LSS donated over 160 books to the PSA student raffle, held Saturday night prior to the main reception. Every student who passed me later that night had a handful of books and an ear-to-ear smile.

Library of Social Science would like to thank the Pacific Sociological Association staff for all the support they provided in helping us put together the book exhibit—and for the warm welcome we received on-site.

We would also like to express our gratitude to the publishers who participated in the 2016 PSA meeting. Without your books, there can be no exhibit.

Best regards,
Hugh Galford
LSS Marketing Manager

Polity: A selection of their 194 titles on display.

Stanford: Attendees were excited by The Latinos of Asia and ¡Tequila!

SAGE’s Christa Walker during a lighter moment...

and California’s Will Vincent taking a moment.

Lynne Rienner’s titles proved particularly popular this year.

Chicago’s books were a hit, too, ranging from Secular Religion to Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret.

Attendees gather between sessions.

Springer SBM’s titles, including several by Jonathan Turner.

Brill’s new runner sets their titles apart.

Mark Bird and 700 Laws of Sociology.

British Columbia’s titles on gender and sexuality found their audience.

The New Press’ books on civil society were favorites, especially Pushout and Understanding Mass Incarceration.