In 1892 the fledgling F.A. Davis Company was growing, and it was time to find more elbow room. Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway, connecting City Hall with Fairmount Park, was advancing through its proposal stages as “The Boulevard.” As neighboring real estate was becoming more desirable, a nearby 288-foot lot between Arch and Cherry Streets would soon become the site of F.A. Davis world headquarters. There was even room for their printing presses. Satellite offices in New York, Chicago, and Boston took note.
In 1892 the company outlook was so bright that elbows swung widely. F.A. Davis, the founder, was quoted: “The growth of the Company’s business leaves little doubt that more room will be required each year. The walls and foundation (of the new, two-story building) are being constructed to sustain a final structure of six stories.” Near the end of the company’s “First Annual Report,” F.A. piled more onto his high rise of optimism with a miscellaneous section he entitled “Encouraging Facts.” Here he explained how the size of the commissioned sales staff would be restored upon removal of “sickness, the cholera scare, election matters, and various other obstacles.”
The next two years would test his mettle but fail to smudge his rose-tinted spirit.
Begrudgingly F.A. Davis described 1894 “as the year of accident, hard times, and misfortune.” The focus of his Annual Report was current national events as he summarized an economy in crisis. Weather extremes had decimated the farming industry; strikes shut down coal mines and railroads as the country debated which metal would back its beleaguered currency. Had F.A. Davis’s eternal flame of optimism been extinguished? With $71,000 of private equity sitting unissued in the Davis Treasury, his duty to raise capital meant the (spin) doctor was in. With sales down 22% (and 51% over two years) he observed “a larger business has been done in proportion to ground covered”. Very smooth though not especially sympathetic to the sales representatives claimed by sickness as he wrote, “naturally, it was the best men who remained at work.”
His company’s cash cow was the Cyclopedia of Medicine subscription series, which became the “Annual.” “Thousands of physicians in this country are only waiting the dawning of better times to place the entire files of the Annual upon their shelves, and day by day fresh converts are being made to the belief that is, beyond all questions, the book for Hard Times (sic).” Perhaps he viewed a house fire as a chance to clean out the attic.
Today F.A. Davis Company has emerged as a preeminent college publisher in nursing and health science. In 1894, by contrast, Davis published medical books and subscription references for physicians and sold them door to door. Today’s world headquarters can be found on the same lot in a more recent two-story building. The satellite offices in New York, Chicago, and London were closed before they would ring in the 20th century, and the printing presses rolled on until a more familiar “Depression” took its toll.
With student enrollments rising, the first several years of the 21st century were prosperous for many publishers in our niche even while the rules of engagement were changing. Traditional book content underwent expensive conversion for the many formats of digital delivery. Expanding ancillary packages (most on the Web) and their expectations also called for more staff. Meanwhile internet access to free information has had a debilitating effect on the sensibilities of copyright protection and the willingness of buyers to pay for content, however superior. But the prosperity cycle, able to withstand much adversity for a while, was subject to its own conversion as many trusted financial institutions simultaneously collapsed in 2008. In 1894 conditions yielded to “accident, hard times, and misfortune.” In 2009, health care publishing lost its apparent immunity to a more contemporary version of “accident, hard times, and misfortune.” Nursing staff shortages, we have learned, do not guarantee employment for college graduates anymore.
The call for perseverance has once again today caught our collective ear. Our response feeds off the enduring response of our forebears when the threat of demise found the Cherry Street address very accessible. In 1894 the future of the company was teetering on F.A.’s ability to add investors—lots of investors—during the worst possible conditions. His spin of optimism had to turn as if the ball bearings were in position when they were not.
His solution was brilliantly resourceful. He found the best possible authors, signed them to ambitious projects, and then sold them a few shares of preferred on the side. He knew how to embellish a good handshake, and his authorship to a large degree became ownership. One author even landed on the Board of Directors, and many authors/shareholders deferred their royalties to ease the strain. But beyond his artful salesmanship, F.A. knew the power of having the best content. It meant generating a promising and lasting publishing future.
In 2010 the Davis ownership dynamic, although still run by the family, is much more stable and the company more attractive. Even in this lousy economy, there are legions of investors that want in. Most would overpay. Some would take a minority interest. All have been (politely) rejected. (If capital had been this easy to raise in 1894, F.A. would have enjoyed a magnificent view of the Boulevard from his 6th story office.) In retrospect, F.A. faithfully left the preservation of the Company’s everlasting independence in the hands of his succeeding family. Today we have thrived (when we can) in a different kind of elbow room. It is the rarest of forms in a surrounding most coveted. It is … publishing autonomy. Beholden to the same fundamental principles of our capital raising founder, the cultivation of superior content will win this day as it has for roughly 47,482 autonomous days before. Only good books/titles sell in hard times, and in 130 years we’ve had our fair share…of both.
Does ever-evolving instructional information, like most life forms, benefit from a nurturing environment? If Content is King and the kingdom is in turmoil, does the King’s crown need a chin strap? Does the quality or timeliness of the content suffer when the Emperor wears no clothes? Do the forces of merger and acquisition impose a weakened state on the cultivating resources? The health science publishing industry in the United States has gone through a tremendous transformation over the past 12 years. If you’re keeping score, don’t put your pencil down. Of F.A. Davis’s 6 major competitors in 1997, none of them has the same owner; none of them has the same leadership; some of them have joined together shotgun-style; and all of them are an e-mail away from thrashing around in the corporate blender again, lest they find themselves in the corporate compost heap.
With each transformation comes a new surge of bravado to validate and justify the absurd amount of money that built their long-legged, top-heavy thrones. Power and money don’t stay neatly in their own spheres and rarely slow down to sniff the sweet fragrance of grass-roots publishing. How do these titans of tumult find the time to relish the nuances of content development when their most lucid entrepreneurial inspiration is to clear the antitrust investigation? They don’t and they won’t, because they see only forests and not trees. Their sightlines, like their expectations, are fixed only on building a virtual mountain of euros. (They invest globally but dream locally.)
Interestingly, the health science publishing kingdom has attracted new American players who are willing to sink tons of capital into the hope that you, the customer, don’t care what you get as long as it doesn’t come on that dreadful substance known as paper. They hope you will not notice the mediocrity of their content because the sizzle of their e-format du jour will surely have you mesmerized. How mediocre is their content? Perhaps its degree of mediocrity may be directly proportional to the number of times I am stuck declining their offers to buy our content. (They have an aversion to developing high-quality content themselves.) Hope their investors, a.k.a. the gullible Emperors, are well diversified. And cover up, please.
So why not sell out to the nice people with the golden handshake? They buy me lunch; they promise me more in responsibility. They tell me I can have an enormous cake and eat it, too. Would Tiger Woods compromise his opportunity to become the winningest golfer of all time for more money and a promise to rejoin the tour with a limit of five clubs in his bag? One leg maybe, but five clubs? I don’t think so.
We like competing. We enjoy the reward of beating down the devil in the details and creating….creating the best book with the best ancillary package that jumps and dances through multiple formats and wins today’s race. As you would expect, the preparation for today’s race can consume many, many yesterdays….
For example, during the last four years, our Team of lexicographers, editors, consultants, consultant editors, etymologists, illustrators, database specialists, pronunciators, contributors, electronic product developers, digital image specialists, and, more recently, marketers, have been diligently working toward the biggest deadline found on the company agenda—Taber’s 21…Bound for Greatness on February 9, 2009. And, when the Little Green Giant casts a long shadow across the competitive landscape of have-hopes and have-nots, F.A. Davis shall enjoy four more years of serving you even better.
Then, Now, and Forever. F.A. Davis has empowered Taber’s with the greatest infusion of current, relevant and practical information. When you Get Plugged Into Taber’s Power Source for Taber’s 21, you will have a lot more to plug into. In addition to a free year’s subscription to TOL (Taber’s On Line), each owner of the print version can subscribe to a free year of its content in PDA format. Every Taber’s delivery is a special delivery.
Portability, Accuracy, Breadth. For the first time ever, Taber’s 21 has a Taber’sPlus DVD. Not only does it present over 800 illustrations in print, but it also provides an additional 300 illustrations that appear only on the DVD and are cross-referenced from their entries in the print version. The added Stroke of Color and the new images on disc provide even greater breadth to its Masterpiece of Knowledge. Also included on the ancillary-rich DVD are over 30,000 pronunciations. Each Nursing entry and each Health Science entry Is Spoken Here.
Early this year, Taber’s will reach an all-time 10 million copies sold. Thank you. To commemorate this remarkable feat, I present this year’s history lesson by resurrecting Taber’s ad slogans through the last 36 years and nine editions. If you are among those Davis devotees who recognized this run through Taber’s slogan history, you have undoubtedly made a wonderful contribution to your profession. If you remember some of them, hats off to our illustrious sales and marketing team. If you remember all of them, good grief…and Thank You For Your Support. (OK, not ours.) You are presumably among the legions that seek out the best content regardless of delivery. You know that the F.A. Davis brand is synonymous with superior content and that it is still the same brand it has been for generations in serving the demands of course instruction and clinical practice. We have not been “optimized and transformed” by a committee in Amsterdam nor seduced by a private equity firm that “will change the market.” We don’t spin a wheel of fortune to decide which imprint belongs on the spine and we don’t need to gouge you with prices sent soaring by a reckless corporate transaction.
We are F.A. Davis, upheld by 130 years of independent leadership and a determination to tally on. When you see the Brilliance of Taber’s 21, A Marvel of Time and Energy, you may rejoice in the reaffirmation that Content is still King and its Delivery is a bountiful selection of his many-splendorous shoes.
Can a company’s recent success ignite a renewed fascination in its past? Can a seemingly endless building renovation, enabled by same success, refocus the spotlight on the central figures of a company’s genesis? Can the portraits of same central figures, now in classically updated surroundings, resurrect the prominence of their mighty achievements? At F.A. Davis Company the answer is yes. Yes, because however scattered and piled and stacked and stashed in places so secure as the Chairman’s private lavatory, the archives of F.A. Davis have been preserved. And yes, because sometimes the best way to learn something new is to take something old and figure out why in the world it avoided the haul of the recycle truck.
Once upon a time, an enterprising, resourceful book salesman, F.A. Davis, called on a prodigal physician and lecturer at Jefferson Medical College, John V. Shoemaker. At age 27, Dr. Shoemaker had already distinguished himself as the only bona fide dermatologist in the city of Philadelphia and established a dispensary for skin treatments. He had also, with several associates, authored and circulated the Medical Bulletin, a popular monthly journal winning unsolicited approval of no less than the distinguished Professor Samuel D. Gross. The 29-year-old F.A. Davis saw an opportunity to relieve Dr. Shoemaker of his burden and put his own imprint on the Medical Bulletin. Dr. Shoemaker agreed and was thereby relieved. The year was 1879 and a long collaboration had begun.
The importance of the roles the versatile Dr. Shoemaker played in the company’s formation cannot be overstated. Active in the pursuit of affordable healthcare for all Philadelphians, one would assume his brief hand at self-publishing would be forever delegated to the upstart F.A. Davis Company. Dr. Shoemaker, it seems, made the fledgling company, whose financial health often teetered on the edge of despair, a frequent house call. His medicine bag routinely dispensed a publisher’s best medicine: viable manuscript. It was that rare prescription where overdose was wholly encouraged and Dr. Shoemaker responded in kind. His monthly Medical Bulletin was joined weekly by The Medical Register, which years later became The Times and Register.
Dr. Shoemaker’s areas of expertise included dermatology, pharmacology, and sexually transmitted diseases (especially syphilis), which yielded the following titles: Ointments and Oleates, Especially in Diseases of the Skin, Materia Medica and Therapeutics with Especial Reference to Chemical Application of Drugs, Heredity, Health and Personal Beauty, Poisons and their Antidotes. The diversity of his subject matter gives rise to the size of his practice.
Was not sleep deprivation among his specialties? He managed time for more writing: A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Skin and A Treatise on Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, both of which went into multiple editions by 1904.
Dr. Shoemaker’s devotion to F.A. Davis Company went further. He became the only author in company history to serve on the Board of Directors. With all due respect, the only authors I know nearest to that class are the ones who act as if they’re on the Board of Directors.
By 1897 the company had run up an unpaid royalty balance of $1,300 due Dr. Shoemaker. He took legal action, but not really as adversary. When he filed a claim “against” F.A. Davis Company, he urged the court to allow F.A. Davis, the company, to raise more capital! In March 1897, with the company’s creditors presumably clamoring for restitution, the company’s inner circle, led by Dr. Shoemaker, sought possession of the company’s assets. In his deposition, George Creveling, Treasurer, orator, and co-complainant said: “the company will be worthless if permitted to be sold at the present time.” Translation: Please honorable court, don’t let the bank receivers sell off the assets of the company; let our newly founded syndicate be empowered to raise another $300,000 for the business operation. The judge acquiesced for a one-year term and then in 1898 extended it a second term.
At the turn of the century, the company’s unwelcome bankruptcy became a necessity, but the inner circle, not the court, took control, leaving all indications that F.A. Davis, the founder, had relinquished his command. In March 1900, the so-called Physicians and Student Publishing Company, led by Alonzo Davis, son of F.A. Davis, provided the legal alternative and financial protection to eventually reconnect F.A. Davis, the founder, to his company in April 1901.
Dr. Shoemaker’s support never wavered. Author, editor, stockholder, ambassador of good will, complainant, humanitarian, and board director, he saw F. A. Davis Company as a platform to showcase Philadelphia as a “great medical centre, attracting students to its schools, wealthy patronage to its physicians, capital, population, trade, all of those elements which our city so well deserves, but for which its merits entitle it to.” (Quoted from a testimonial letter he wrote dated January 28, 1892, on Medical Bulletin stationery.) Dr. Shoemaker served on the Board of Directors through 1901 and resigned once the company had regained its name, its leadership, and its financial stability. By then the royalties due him were presumably paid in full.
In 1892, 150 signatures appear on the pledge list of subscribers to preferred stock. Over 70% are identified as physicians. Most, if not all physicians, were well aware that the venerable Dr. Shoemaker had signed on. F.A. Davis pledged $50,000. John V. Shoemaker pledged $2,500. Their signatures are two lines apart, which may represent the greatest degree of separation between the lives of these proud men.
Truth be told, my dig into the company archives (i.e., one large neglected cardboard box) was inspired by a call I received from Jean D. Wilson, M.D., and enabled by the Chairman’s permission to enter his lavatory. Dr. Wilson, Professor of Internal Medicine at Southwestern Medical School, was preparing to write a one hundredth anniversary tribute piece in The Endocrinologist commemorating the 1907 F.A. Davis publication of The Internal Secretions and the Principles of Medicine, written by Charles E. de M. Sajous, M.D. Dr. Sajous is considered by many to be the Father of Endocrinology. Dr. Wilson, being one of the many, was thrilled to receive the sales numbers and customer testimonials found in the box. Sifting through the many gems I sensed a strong insinuation that Dr. Wilson should have been doing his anniversary piece six years ago, provided Dr. Sajous had delivered his manuscript on time. President F.A. Davis, in his 1907 annual stockholders report, casually referred to this landmark work as “Eternal Secretions,” a rare departure from his usually diplomatic narrative. There is nothing period sensitive, I’ve learned, with publishers waiting for tardy manuscript.
Dr. Sajous was an F.A. Davis heavyweight. He pledged $10,000 in the 1892 stock offering, second only to F.A. Davis. His achievements and their value to F.A. Davis Company have been long recognized by the company. Dr. Sajous’s majestic portrait hangs in the company lobby. In a kind of late author tag team, Dr. Sajous’s legacy has prompted me to cast a spotlight on the previously unheralded Dr. Shoemaker. From a dusty vessel made of cardboard to the hallowed archives of Thomas Jefferson University, the journey has been enlightening. As a result, Dr Shoemaker’s portrait, seen above, will join the greats of F.A. Davis Company past, in oil, on display. And then finally…the renovation will be finished.
Many thanks to F. Michael Angelo, University Archivist of Thomas Jefferson University who assisted me in my research.
We are the F.A. Davis Company. What makes us tick? What values do we embody? What is important to us? Who really knows who we are? You would think after 128 years, the last dozen or so catalog messages, and a long history as a market leader, that the world in which we publish would know us better. We have an expanding sales staff spreading the F.A. Davis word. We’ve been headquartered on the same property since 1894. Our Web site gets about 200,000 hits a day. We have been breaking sales records consistently. We change presidents roughly every time the world population doubles. So why are we so hard to figure out?
Perhaps I should assemble a class for those who think they know who we are, but apparently need further training. Let’s call it "Davis for Dummies". The class shall be located in our most hallowed space, the Green Room, where meetings here go to die... er...di-agram company business. I hope we have enough space....not necessarily for the attendees, but for their stretch limousines in the under-endowed parking lot behind our building.
In the seats closest to the Clarence Taber portrait, I’d like all competitive publishers that have decided their textbooks can’t sell unless they are packaged with a Davis publication. This is not what they mean when they talk about content aggregation. This is more like an R. R. Bowker version of a shotgun wedding. As parent and guardian of the venerable Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, I hate to see my baby mixing with the wrong crowd. So for all competitors that have been clever enough to find Taber’s at a decent discount but careless enough to boast as if it is their own, there will be a complimentary mirror inside their coursepack. That way, while they are trying to figure out who we are, they can make a few observations about themselves.
Going down the long four part table, we find the portrait of George Piersol, MD, longtime editor of the revered Cyclopedia of Medicine, Surgery, Specialties. Here we will position competitors with particularly large ears (see Dr. Piersol) to go along with their vivid imaginations. These competitors have spread the word that "F.A. Davis was just sold" so many times it has adversely affected their credit rating. In their coursepack this group will get special shoes so they might jump to more accurate conclusions. If Taber’s for instance, has been packaged with a competitor’s medical terminology text by the competitor, directional advice will be rendered. There will be plenty of room to 1) confirm Taber’s pre-eminence in the health science community; even competitors want to sell it. 2) assume their medical terminology texts have the equivalent sales appeal of a 20th century drug guide 3) compliment the match making publisher on its exquisite taste. This is however, not, I repeat, not enough evidence to tell the world F.A. Davis has been sold.
A special pilgrimage will be scheduled for this group to go to the top floor (aka the 2nd floor) to the Chairman’s office where hangs a magnificent portrait of Aunt Irene (Craven Davis) who ran the company for 43 years. From one knee attendees will humbly gaze into her self contented eyes while chanting..."one flight of stairs, so tall a mountain...one flight of stairs, so tall a mountain"... Extra credit will come to those who wait for her to stop them.
On the other side of the table under the noble visage of F.A. Davis, founder and entrepreneur extraordinaire, we’ll position representatives from relevant publishing associations that make it their business to distribute awards of distinction. Particular attention will be given to scheduling. When Bob Craven, Chairman of the Board, was named to receive the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Medical Publishers Association we were all very proud. The traditional March association dinner, however, was moved to early February to coincide with a larger meeting. The conversation with an association representative a few months prior went something like this:
AMPA: "Do you know how I can reach your father? He’s been named for the Lifetime award this year."
Me: "That’s great, he’ll be thrilled. When’s the dinner?"
AMPA: "February 5."
Me: "Is that a Sunday?"
AMPA: "Yes, cocktails start at 6pm."
Me: "Isn’t that the night of the Super Bowl?"
AMPA: (long pause)
Me: "Isn’t kickoff just after 6pm?"
AMPA: "I’m a football fan. I can’t believe I missed this...but hey, it’s not like the Eagles are going to be in it."
After it was learned that there was no reasonable flexibility in the schedule, my father responded: "I’m flattered that you think I can draw a crowd during the Super Bowl, but I must take a pass."
The dinner, of course, was cancelled but Bob Craven’s lifetime achievement endures. Those in attendance will learn that Bob Craven’s greatest award is the F.A. Davis Company he left to posterity. It commands a legacy of independence...of perseverance...of publishing excellence and most importantly a legacy of continuation. In a sympathy letter sent to Bob Craven upon Aunt Irene’s death in 1964, Chick Speakman of Chicago Medical Books wrote: "I know that she meant a great deal to you, and her memory certainly will carry on for many years to come as a stimulus to those of the Davis Company".
......one flight of stairs, so tall a mountain....
The remaining seats will no doubt be filled in by merger brokers traveling in cognito as legitimate invitees. These crashers, a kind of paparazzi without cameras, have been trying to get on the inside for years. In deference to their persistence, a 3 hour elective will be added to teach them how to take "No" for an answer.
Now all we need is a date. Let’s see, the Green Room is currently being renovated to abide by the presidential scheduling plan...i.e. new iteration every 37 years. So once that’s done, giving some margin for construction delays and monthly meeting weeks, how about the last Thursday in November? Oh, that’s Thanksgiving?......Hey, it’s not like the Eagles are playing.
We live in an age when Google™, the search engine, can find for us nearly anything. The guy that established googol, the term, which inspired Google, the search engine, was born in 1878, about the same time F.A. Davis Company was founded (1879). It was Dr. Edward Kasner’s intent to anglicize a number big enough to make countable every particle in the universe, bringing a sense of marvel to the formation of 100 zeroes and a bunch of commas. He couldn’t have done it without his 9-year old nephew who masterminded the word. Frank Allston Davis, on the other hand, created a company big enough to serve the information needs of every health care professional, bringing a sense of marvel to superior content. Mr. Davis started a powerful tradition rich in marvelously large numbers, especially ones needing no commas at all. He couldn’t have done it without his nephew either.
Consider the enormity of the number “127” as enlarged by F.A. Davis Company. For 127 years (note no commas) F.A. Davis has been publishing the finest in health science publications under the leadership of the founding family. For the same 127 years F.A. Davis has been independent and closely held…and truly amazed at how increasingly attractive we look to total strangers. But we are stillnot for sale. Short version: We just say “No.” Long version: “Beautiful course, thanks for the round, but no, we’re not interested.”
In between doling out well-mannered rejections, we have found the time to publish a distinguished list of titles for your career advancement and/or your instructional efficacy. There is no apparent burden in carrying a rich history apart from any lingering effects brought on by a balmy night a couple of years ago when we celebrated our quasquicentennial. Quasquicentennial? No, it’s not the latest in gourmet tequila. The word itself could use a few commas and barely fit on the Cherry Street block in Philadelphia we reconfigured for one enchantingly nostalgic evening.
Life-size images of all three past presidents gazed proudly from second-story windows within a replicated façade of a building from which these leaders secured their command. The youngest could also be seen below, at street level, marveling at the functionality of the replicated front door; a door he darkened for the first 20 years of his 57-year career at Davis. He is my father, Bob Craven, Chairman of the Board and nephew of F.A. Davis. He, more than the ambient lighting, more than the tantalizing beat of brass, woodwind and string, and even more than the spontaneous outburst of those absorbed in overdue reunion, brought the scene to life at his rejuvenated age (at the time) of 82. On this night, door and ex-president swung inseparably to the rhythm of yesteryear.
Just above, from the middle window Aunt Irene, wife of the founder and president until 1960, radiated a content, yet stern countenance, familiar to all who wished her cooperation however futile that may have been. She never reached 100 pounds, but was no pushover in any weight class. If she did not approve of the merriment below, surely we would not have enjoyed such agreeable weather. On display, her wry smile veiled the fierce pride engaged to protect the company’s prolonged independence. Her reign as president (her entry-level position) lasted 43 years. Googol, schmoogol, show me a word big enough for that!
A few trump l’oeil bricks and two windows to her right, a latter-day F.A. Davis stood with an air of authority reserved for nobility. Because of his rheumatism, F.A. favored the west coast of Florida to seed and monitor much capital investment. That handlebar mustache may have been the remains of a beard clipping spree during a Tampa Bay heat wave. If F.A. had spent that much time mingling in Florida today, he’d be sized up as a Presidential candidate. The publishing house, however never left Philadelphia. And perhaps it is appropriate that F.A. be rendered on a beautifully cool summer evening, in a full-length overcoat, with hat in hand, a testament to the blood thinning effects of Florida’s therapeutic climate. His story makes our numbers, big and getting bigger, that much more remarkable.
Only in an F.A. Davis catalog had there been more Davis authors in one place. And in the grandeur of the evening, they warmly added to the revelry. Several were cited for both the successful longevity of their titles and their itinerant effort to join the celebration. It is a select group of very special people whose publications have helped F.A. Davis sales grow by six times in the last 20 years. They are listed in alphabetical order with their book titles whose editions have spanned this period.
- Marilynn E. Doenges, RN, BSN, MA: Nurse’s Pocket Guide: Diagnoses, Interventions, and Rationales & Nursing Care Plans: Guidelines for Individualizing Patient Care
- Barbara A. Gylys, MEd, CMA-A: Medical Terminology Systems: A Body Systems Approach & Medical Terminology Simplified: A Programmed Learning Approach by Body Systems
- Denise Harmening, PhD, MT(ASCP), CLS(NCA): Modern Blood Banking and Transfusion Practices & Clinical Hematology and Fundamentals of Hemostasis
- Carole Bernstein Lewis, PhD, PT, GCS, MSG, MPA: Aging: The Health-Care Challenge
- Sue Michlovitz, PhD, PT, CHT: Modalities for Therapeutic Intervention
- Mary Frances Moorhouse, RN, BSN, CRRN, CLNC: Nurse’s Pocket Guide: Diagnoses, Interventions, and Rationales & Nursing Care Plans: Guidelines for Individualizing Patient Care
- Alice C. Murr, RN, BSN: Nurse’s Pocket Guide: Diagnoses, Interventions, and Rationales & Nursing Care Plans: Guidelines for Individualizing Patient Care
- Clayton L. Thomas, M.D., M.P.H.: former editor of Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary
Their titles, including the ones above, can be found descriptively on our website. It is my honor to bring their names forward and acknowledge them on our quasquicentennial honor roll. I thank them once again for coming and for sustaining book success at F.A. Davis Company for over 20 years.
The party space is back functioning as a parking lot and quiet side street. The dumpsters on Cherry Street have reclaimed their positions. Google is back searching in vain for another independent, closely held health science publisher (that has succeeded the generation of the founder). And the replicate façade lies in wait, out of view, hoping there may be an occasion before 2029 when Davis history might raise its ceremonial glass again. 128? Quasquicentennial plus 3? Suddenly that has a nice ring to it.
Poetic license is a powerful thing. It has not only assisted cultural, social and scientific progress for the civilized world, but it can give a big voice to a small mouth, that is, if anyone is listening. Throw in an information revolution and a big voice just got bigger. While information technology has found a home for a mouse under every hand and turned every young music lover into a copyright criminal it has created a rush for power and position so blind that we have been caught in the era of the mismatch (see Time Warner/AOL) and the misdeed (see Enron, WorldCom). I feel hoodwinked just thinking about. Who do these guys think they are? King of the world? Haven’t they figured out that in the New World Order, a King’s reign is too often the forerunner for indictment, shame and public humiliation? Then allow me to proceed cautiously, hoping the power of poetic license shall beckon a King’s reign for me without the messy ending….
When I am King of the world, there will be a tax on used textbooks that would be equal to the discount from the price of the unused (new) version. For those who will pay full price to have a textbook highlighted artistically by another student whose course grade is unknown, the tax would go toward orthopedic treatments for anyone paying college tuition and presumably carrying a lot of books. It shall be known as a back tax.
When I am King of the world, guidance counselors will be required to let every high school senior know that nursing and health professions textbook titles are priced SIGNIFICANTLY lower than nearly every other textbook in a college bookstore. In fact the new health science core texts are priced even lower than many “used” business/biology/psychology texts that proliferate the college scene. I don’t mean to say that health science textbooks are not a sizable investment, just that we are not pricing at levels that have caused the recent negative publicity for other college publishers.
When I am King of the world, full scholarships would be awarded to any qualifier aspiring to become a nurse/health science educator. In other words, the Nurse Reinvestment Act needs much more funding. If the economy is driving career seekers toward nursing and the health professions there should be someone there to teach them. The solution for the nursing shortage may be more complex than this, but without a fully trained army of health care professionals, there is no solution.
When I am King of the world, the quality of beer and the quality of health science content will not be confused. Just because the Dutch and the Canadians make better beer doesn’t mean Dutch and Canadian parent companies make better publishers, especially in the United States. But how can you, the customer, know whether you’re buying American when the other industry imprints still look the same? That’s easy. Simply buy FA Davis publications. That way, you’re not only buying American, you’re buying into 126 years of publishing independence, too.
When I am King of the world, the smallest publisher in the health science college publishing industry shall have the best selling publication. And it shall be a reference so versatile that it is useful to all disciplines, all professions, and to students and clinicians alike. Perhaps it should be a dictionary so committed to the latest in the vocabularies of all health science professions that its first 19 editions will have sold over 9 million copies. Its name, Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, shall be synonymous with breadth, accuracy and reliability. And when its 20th edition is published in February 2005 it shall, after 65 years of serving the health care community, arrive at the peak of its popularity and proliferation. It shall be big enough to keep a small independent publishing company continuously independent and small enough to carry everywhere. You might even say it shall have content fit for a King.
And when you are King of the world, don’t forget us. We’re the ones keeping your Taber’s a title to rule by.
F.A. Davis Company is 125 years old. The power and endurance of small publishing house quality shall be celebrated again. Would that be with record Taber's sales? Best-ever Drug Guide sales? And especially with a new, all-weather pocket guide (RNotes) that has been printed and reprinted 6 times in 10 precocious months? Yes, yes--125 times yes!
So light the candles and stand back. Somebody forgot the sugar in the cake mix? Doesn't matter. The cake will taste sweet to me. If you have read this page before, you know that F.A. Davis Company is nothing if not closely held and independent--and independence is no artificial sweetener. It is pure and natural and, most of all, rare, leaving me to ponder the remarkable 125-year adventure to maintain this flavor.
The F.A. Davis Company's journey to remain independent has been navigated four different ways by four different regimes spanning all 125 years. When F. A. Davis founded the company in 1879, the temptation to sell out was desperately exceeded by the instinct to survive. This was an age when a venture capitalist was usually nothing more than a reluctant sibling with some extra cash. Consequently, bankruptcy court seldom found its debtors in the red ink floods of the recent dot-com disasters. For F.A. Davis Company, no noose was good news as the company rebounded numerous times from bankruptcy reorganization.
It is widely believed that F. A. was eventually too preoccupied with promoting the west coast of Florida to be entertaining the sell-off (or the build-up) of his fledgling company. Philadelphia, he knew, was the hub of American medical teaching and practice, not Tarpon Springs, Florida, where his nagging rheumatism was reduced to a topic of conversation. F.A. Davis, the company, stayed in Philadelphia while F. A. Davis, the free-spirited entrepreneur, spent enough time in Florida to be credited with the cofounding of St. Petersburg. If, say, J. P. Morgan, had called upon F. A. in the early years of the company's existence (and was lucky enough to find him), the greeting would have been brief and the verbal agreement of sale even quicker . . . sending F. A. home for a probable change of heart. F. A., you see, became a devoted (Craven) family man upon his marriage to my Great Aunt Irene Craven, because this family included a gaggle of her sisters, too. When the company was not in bankruptcy court, it was the only stable investment he had, and she knew it.
When F. A. died in 1917, Irene, age 42, began a 43-year publishing career that ended the way it started--with her as company president. She left her husband's Florida sand castles to those with rheumatic disorders and set her remarkable regime on the strength of her over-the-shoulder observations. Her ability to carry the company through the Great Depression and a number of bank receiverships only galvanized the fierce pride she took in preserving the company's independence. The Taber's dictionary was signed and cultivated under her watch and remains the company's flagship title today.
Did she ever have discussions with prospective buyers? Only with trusted ones . . . so there were none.
Many believed that F.A. Davis Company would be auction fodder when estate taxes would fillet the company upon her death. The genius of her renowned frugality (she recycled paper when we had enough trees) would ultimately fuel the legacy of the company's independence. The company's value at her death was serendipitously appraised on the basis of the dividends she paid to the few stockholders there were (all were employees and/or family). Because the company had not grown in many years, her Christmas card became their dividend. The taxable value dropped well under book value, and in 1964, the year of her death, her nephew Bob Craven Sr.'s regime as president AND owner began its stride.
As Bob Craven revitalized the company, the landscape of health science publishing was changing. Ownership of our competitors went from fellow publishers who wanted to buy us a drink to corporate publishers who wanted to buy us outright. Meanwhile, the selling price multiplied to unthinkable levels. Everyone, and I mean everyone, thought F.A. Davis Company would sell, too. The lone exception happened to be in charge. Bob Craven enjoyed what he was doing as much as he marveled at what he was hearing.
"Autonomy," the suitors cried, "will still be yours."
They were right, of course, because no deal was done!
The incoming free lunches from Holland and St. Louis and Canada and New York went home with nothing more than a tentative date to lunch again and a few well-told Aunt Irene stories. They would have to expand their bloated, yet ever-ravenous, publishing empires somewhere else.
Just as important, Bob Craven did in 1972 something that had not been done in the first 93 years. He built a company succession plan. Perhaps he confided in the law of averages, which had remarkably spared the company from Aunt Irene's decision to write her first will and testament at age 85.
My brother, Bruce (who is actively licensing our electronic content), and I are the beneficiaries of the plan. That plan looks even better now when you assess the consolidation damage self-imposed on our biggest competitors. From places where venerable icons of publishing greatness once stood, there remains only a bureaucratic version of a shotgun wedding, devoid of autonomy, held loosely credible by a logo whose reputation was built under former ownership. Ruined is the notion that size matters, but retained has been their taste for high quality, albeit from the outside looking in. Their mission is clear: If you can't beat them, buy them . . . and if they say they don't want to sell, don't believe them. Merger brokers understand this philosophy very well so their persistence has made them excellent representatives. My phone number may not be on their speed dial, it just seems that way. The tack, however, has changed. Now they know better than to boast about the virtues of what would be the company's "new autonomy." That could get in the way of some perfectly legitimate plans to play golf. And, if they let me win, they might even hear a few more Aunt Irene stories.
Happy Birthday, F.A. Davis Company, for you are 125 years free and counting. . . . How sweet it is!
We are very grateful for all of you who noticed, worried, and/or cared that there was no F. A. Davis catalog PRINTED for 2002. I have provided a list of seven reasons that you may select from. Take as many as you like.
- We wanted to give our website and its catalog top priority.
- Now you know we are technologically savvy. Our website hits have been skyrocketing and your lengthening visits there have surely allowed you to discover the richness of the F. A. Davis experience.
- We are not publicly traded and we enjoy flexing our independence.
- The theme of my 2001 catalog message, “Content is King at F. A. Davis” was meant to be a lasting one. Succeeding it after just one year was entirely too soon.
- Davis’s Drug Guide for Nurses has become so popular in its two-year print cycle that we decided to stage a duet with the catalog.
- We wanted to show our stodgy competitors that they are no match for us with or without a printed catalog. Small and independent equals quick and agile . . . again.
- In deference to another long (not necessarily great) tradition. F. A. Davis has grown bored of responding to constant rumors virtually guaranteeing an impending sell-out. We thought maybe if we skipped a print catalog the rumors may at least become a little more creative.
With or without a printed catalog, it was an exceptionally good year to be independent. (That’s what all independent publishers say when they’ve had a good year.) And we thank you. And we thank the beleaguered health care delivery system for attracting more and more capable health care professionals. But why does it take a slumping economy to make a career in the health sciences look attractive? Everybody says the United States will be woefully short of nurses in the year 2010, but nobody has factored in the cycle of the economy in the next seven years. It is a very sad commentary on those in power that our health care system may need a seven-year recession to cure its staffing crisis, regardless of what Congress is doing to sweeten the pie.
The theory, of course, relies on the premise that eligible students will opt for other more "rewarding" careers when the economy is strong, like investments, computer science, travel-related careers, etc. When these industries are not hiring, the health sciences finally get the tired, poor, and capable masses they've been waiting for. According to the website, www.discover nursing.com, there are well over 100,000 job openings for nurses right now. By 2020 we could be short by as many as 454,000.
Federal legislation will help and it’s almost here, in the form of the Nurse Reinvestment Act, which at this writing, has passed both a House and Senate version and awaits a “convergence.” By the time the President signs this bill into action, will it be enough to overcome an economic revival?
Kudos to the Johnson & Johnson Company, who has launched their “Campaign for Nursing’s Future”. F.A. Davis Company is not affiliated with Johnson & Johnson, but we do buy their products like everyone else. Now we buy even more of them! We applaud their commitment to stimulating the recruitment process and award them a gold medal for their ads during the 2002 Winter Olympics and beyond. Johnson & Johnson, we shed no tears, especially after a rinse and repeat.
And if the horde of eligible health professionals come to create a health care delivery system that serves all of us well, F.A.Davis will be ready. The adventurous and progressive among you have already begun using PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) because for a reasonable fee you can now conveniently carry Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary and the Davis’s Drug Guide(and selected other F.A. Davis titles) almost everywhere, electronically. We applaud your innovation and vow to reasonably support the usefulness of this technology. And yes, the wealth of knowledge crafted into our many printed books can still be found at your favorite bookstore. F. A. Davis Company shall be forever committed to making content delivery your preference.
And if you’re still wondering why we would interrupt such a long consecutive streak of printing catalogs, please note there is only one streak that really matters: F.A. Davis’s 124 consecutive years of independent publishing with American ownership. Let’s enjoy it together.
The first corporate publishing lord to decree "Content is King" is probably contemporary, brilliant, and by now looking for work. Notwithstanding, few adages have emerged from the digital era that have become more universally accepted. ("Whatever goes up must come down" is pre-digital, but just as relevant.) Even fewer adages have inspired a multibillion-dollar chase in a maddening world whose target "W" must stand for words, words, and more words.
The balance of publishing nature for centuries thrived in a nurturing environment enriched by the dynamic interaction of publisher/editor and author. Within this environment, books became the true cultivated symbols of intellectual, spiritual, and recreative progress for the human race, and subsequently content was groomed and coddled like royalty. It took the digital revolution, however, to bring the phrase to its coronation and its powerful link to the future as we foresee it.
Did somebody link promise to the future without provoking an onrush of investors? No! And come they did. These investors had no time or patience to read the fine print, especially in such a frenzied state. The heady fumes emanating from fantasies of striking Internet gold are no cure for blurry vision. So the message that read, " . . . only when nurtured in its natural environs," never sank in and the blitz was on.
Meanwhile, Reed Elsevier, International Thomson, Wolters Kluwer, and Harcourt General raced after herds of content with stun guns, nets, and lots of money as if to be on a kind of continental safari. The more they put in captivity and then traded with others, the tighter the cages became until the publishing process often collapsed under the strain. Where was the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Content Abuse) when we needed them?
The trend prompted a veteran editor-in-chief from one safari camp to declare:
"The real money in books is going to be made not by writing or publishing, but by buying and selling the publishing companies themselves."
How's that for a slaughterhouse mentality? Reading between the lines of this prophecy reveals an industry fixed on pushing titles through an accelerated Darwinian law of survival fitted by the insidious forces of consolidation. Is that anyway to honor the sanctity of content? I think not.
The mega-marketing energy, said the smug safarians, is a minimum requirement for success, especially during the digital revolution. But who says the consolidation reflex didn't deliver a swift kick below the marketing belt? Hey, at those soul-selling prices they've got to kick/cut everywhere. In the end, their leadership has found, if they are still around, that they bought a short cut to mediocrity and dysfunction. If you want to save the animal kingdom, arm Noah with an ark, not a dingy . . . glub, glub!
People ask me how an independent, closely held F.A. Davis Company can survive the harsh demands of being electronically ready while serving a healthcare community with a troubling labor crisis on an operations budget that may not replace Rupert Murdoch's wardrobe. The answer is simple. We still operate in an environment that made content the king of our existence. We are proud of the craft that 122 years have refined for us. We know better than to compromise the process and are very grateful to serve a discerning marketplace that beckons our call.
Our flagship title, Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, will be published in its 19th edition in February 2001. It is the best selling title in all of Health Science Publishing because we understand the importance of completing the process, and we have been blessed with the talent to make it the best and sell it the most.
And yes, the future of publishing resides wherever content remains king. That gives His Majesty a permanent home at F.A. Davis Company.
It looks increasingly unlikely that F. A. Davis Company will become a Fortune 500 company before the end of the century. We might make it if sales in the millennium's last September increase by a factor of say 2,000, provided returns are lighter than normal. Could this be a case of unfulfilled dreams or is this the proverbial blessing in disguise? The honor of being a Fortune 500 company appears to be as fleeting as it is a symbol of power and success.
During the 1980s a total of 230 companies disappeared from the Fortune 500. Of the original top 100 published in 1956 only 29 could be found in 1992s top 100. The guarantee of continued success rings just as hollow for the health science publishing industry, where the largest houses have been led into chaos by the swap-happy lords who own and then disown them. A century of progress in health science publishing has ended abruptly for the abandoned imprints, the fallen CEOs, and the many very able publishing professionals who are being cast aside. The Unfortunate 500 should go on record not as the latest feature in Fortunemagazine, but as a rising head count of victims unable to survive the cross currents of merger and acquisition.
At the turn of the last century when intellectual property was the sprawling college campus on the other side of the fence, American medical publishers were independent and for the most part closely held. A constant flirtation with bankruptcy tested their abilities to raise capital and maintain an unwavering optimism during some difficult economic conditions. As if they needed additional incentive, there was also a chance to take the American Revolution into extra innings. The well-established order of British medical publishers was given notice as a brigade of American publishers led by Henry Charles Lea dutifully legitimized themselves by opening up London offices.
One such publisher got his break while covering the Middle Atlantic region for the esteemed William Wood Company of Great Britain when he came upon a manuscript lead and a stockholder all in the same handshake. Frank Allston Davis signed Dr. John V. Shoemaker, Dean of what became the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Medicine (now defunct), and in 1879 the F. A. Davis Company was born.
While other American publishing entrepreneurs such as Walter Burns Saunders, Joshua Ballinger Lippincott, and Kenneth Blakiston were wholly devoted to their publishing endeavors, Mr. Davis was in pain. Every winter in Philadelphia, and perhaps by simply considering a trip to the company's London office, the opportunistic Mr. Davis needed relief from his chronic rheumatism. In 1885 while attending the American Medical Association meeting in New Orleans, Mr. Davis was alerted to the therapeutic attributes of climate on Pinellas Peninsula in Florida. Forty-three years later he would be recognized as the Father of St. Petersburg by the St. Petersburg Times. Apparently nobody warned him about the side effects.
The land developing company, the electric power plant, the gasworks, the waterworks, the trolley line, the steamship line, and the hotel he built on the Gulf Coast collapsed upon his death in 1917. We can only speculate upon the publishing company's growth rate had Mr. Davis been availed of a steady regimen of ibuprofen, making his time in Philadelphia more bearable. And we can ponder whether estate tax consequences would have forced a more sizable F. A. Davis Company right out of its coveted independence. The privilege to ponder and speculate remains with us.
Today, only F. A. Davis Company is still independent and unlike its formative years, closely held. After a very disappointing year in 1894 Mr. Davis addressed his 39 stockholders. His characteristic enthusiasm clearly challenged, he cited strikes, droughts, cyclones, and floods and then intoned, It is the unexpected that always happens (Yogi Berra was not an investor but should have been). Over 100 years later we have watched the unexpected turn the legacies of health science's publishing forefathers into a kind of talent-cleansed Balkan conflict. Our liberty intact, F. A. Davis Company heads into the new millennium on the high end of good fortune, ready once again, for the unexpected to happen.
Has anyone seen a publisher. s press release lately without reference to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976? Neither have I. You know this Act. It's the one that keeps every proposed merger in the news longer than a Kenneth Starr investigation. It is meant to keep two big business titans in suspense before they. re allowed to make bigger, bulkier business. The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department diligently inspect for monopolistic conditions while employees furiously update their resumes. Sometimes the FTC and the Justice Department throw a rock or two off the bigger mountain, but why bother? The consolidation process usually applies reduction measured in avalanche units.
When I started in the business 25 years ago, F. A. Davis Company was the sixth largest health science publisher. Today we're third and we haven't passed anybody. So why do we feel like we're ahead of the pack?
Firstly, we haven't sold out. You won't find us on one of the 2,407 web pages located on the Hart-Scott-Rodino web site. As the only independent, closely held health science publisher to succeed the generation of the founder, F. A. Davis has not been subject to the dreaded hyphen.
Secondly, we don't want to sell out. We have competed very successfully against publishers much larger, only to watch them fall like the Roman Empire, eaten away by their own excesses. Today our old "friends" are being held up by the hyphens that connect them. And the hyphens can only hold so much. The publishing mass that flounders in front of us is going through the organizational liposuction associated with consolidation. The advantages of being hyphen-free have become very apparent to us.
Thirdly, our niche industry is slumping despite a favorable economy. "How is that possible?", you ask. Well, that's the same question posed in boardrooms from Amsterdam to Los Angeles. While F. A. Davis exercises the privilege of adapting to the challenging conditions of shrinking student enrollments and an information technology revolution that seems determined only to reward a guy named Gates, our "friends" are being forced to bail out.
Lastly, we have become adept at the sport of merger-drafting. One more merger and we. re number two, at which time we. ll find out whether Hart-Scott-Rodino is just another act. The vacuum created by the consolidation epidemic is giving us many new opportunities.
Consequently, F. A. Davis will continue to produce high-quality publications regardless of our ranking. These conditions are built for the survival instincts of a company in its 121st year. Publishers, like F. A. Davis, able to make on-site publishing decisions, own the future of this industry. For that matter, we may be the only one left to tell posterity what really happened in the Great Publishing Shake-Out of the '90s.
Who needs number one? We are F. A. Davis the unhyphenated company.
At sometime in everyone's life, this question arises: who were your role models growing up? The luckiest people need to go no further than their parents, but from a literary standpoint I need a more interesting answer to command an audience. I am very proud to have my father, Robert Sr., who continues to stand tall in my life, if not in his office (most days) two doors to my left. There's nothing wrong with taking retirement seriously, especially after celebrating 50 remarkably productive years guiding the F. A. Davis Company.
The biggest flaw in telling my story is its lack of tabloid appeal. I've been advised by our web site gatekeepers that getting 700 hits a day means nothing. We need quality hits and with this catalog message on the web site, I should be on my best behavior. So I won't criticize the television and print media for proliferating unrealistic expectations for the Internet. Especially when we've got people on our own payroll doing a good job of that already. So what am I left with? If my story lacks the sensationalism necessary to bring "quality" to a gallivanting surfer, how about the F. A. Davis Company story? Over the course of 119 years there must have been an inspiration for its mission. Was there a company we once looked up to? A company that served as an icon of strength and vigor, of common sense in excess, of nurturing brilliance and efficiency. Didn't F. A. Davis Company have a role model, too?
Health science publishing used to have many role models. Oh, where have all the role models gone? We have no trouble finding publishing companies who are bigger than F. A. Davis Company, and perhaps more prolific. There are even a few left whose CEO still resides in the company's hometown. But they are not our role models anymore. In fact, we are trying to avoid what they have become since their ever-changing corporate masters have imposed their rule.
At the highest corporate level, esteem and reverence for books (in any form) have been replaced by a "what have you done for me lately?" ethic, usually in the form of an ultimatum. During times of prosperity, the corporate moguls usually keep their distance, but the moment the numbers go south, you can feel the Los Angeles smog in a St. Louis suburb. And lately, prosperity has been hard to come by. Falling enrollments in many nursing schools have taken their toll on nursing publishers. Sales of medical books have been flat at best. In addition, publishers had expected the return on their information-technology investment to be at least break-even by now. We. re still waiting and we. re still spending. This is not a climate for the patience-impaired.
Our corporate friends have induced a paraphrase for a popular adage: Tough times don't last, but tough people move on to pursue other interests anyway. At least that's what it usually says in the press release. This is hardly becoming of conduct by an industry role model. Another year has gone by and F. A. Davis Company continues to covet its independence. For the 120th straight year, F. A. Davis Company will be led from Philadelphia. Perhaps we've been independent long enough to fill the vacant position of industry role model. Which reminds me, if you've read this far you've officially become a "quality hit." Congratulations! And thank you! Cyberspace could use a few good role models, too.
Sixty-one years after it was founded, F. A. Davis Company reluctantly published a volume of definitions that had been cultivated by a middle-aged 70-year old acquisitions editor as a sidelight to his diverse career. Mired in post-Depression caution as induced by Mr. Jackson, the omnipresent banker, President (Aunt) Irene Craven Davis, for once relented and let Clarence Taber roar one of his terrible roars. It was a proposition that even a skeptical banker wouldn't refute. So in 1940, against the sensibility of fiscal restraint, the first edition of Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary was published. Although the dictionary became an instant success, Aunt Irene and Mr. Jackson could never have imagined the long-term impact of Mr. Taber'soverpowering proposition.
But did Mr. Taber imagine? Unfortunately, the foresight of Mr. Taber'splan is unknown, and the trail of its formality lost. Perhaps Mr. Taber was shrewd enough to realize the exploitation of his amazingly clear vision would fail to be persuasive. After all, he wouldn't want to give Aunt Irene and Mr. Jackson the satisfaction of declaring him mentally incompetent once they saw his forecast of 7 million copies over a 55-year stretch with basically the same cover design. And surely, it was beneath him to conform to a 1930s style proposal where editors' blood samples were not required but dutifully requested from the likes of Mr. Jackson. In accordance, Mr. Taber'sirreverence in the home office was legendary and proposals even then were a pain in the lexicon to put together. Alas, this middle-aged nursing editor of 70 years, in fact, merely conveyed himself as a 1990s thinker: he threatened to sue & and rhetorically inquired, "Mr. Jackson, have you a place in the 1939 budget for legal fees?"
Since those mid-century roars, where teeth were gnashed and eyes rolled, F. A. Davis has stayed on a private boat that has with your support enjoyed agreeable seas. We have stared into the yellow eyes of the monstrous corporate predators and we haven't blinked. Like Mr. Taber, whose remarkable life ended in 1968 at the tender age of 97, we have constantly beat the odds.
Mr. Taber's 1939 proposition has ultimately helped maintain for F. A. Davis Company the blessing of independence and hence, the rich tradition of placing significant value on our heritage. In February of 1997, the 18th edition of Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary shall bring you the best in dictionary service with full color illustrations. The 18th edition is the culmination of an unprecedented evaluation ofTaber's every element. Taber's has always enlightened your students as they navigated their career paths. The 18th edition will do this better than ever, even our banker thinks so.
Traditionally this space is reserved to recognize F. A. Davis as a special place. We are still very proud to be the last of the original closely held independent health science publishers in the land. And we have good reason to keep it that way. Gauging by the reactions of most readers, I should probably stick to that theme. After all, how many countries, let alone publishing companies, can stay independent for 117 straight years?
But this year I'm going to change the theme because I believe somewhere in cyberspace it was decreed that information technology has become a bigger story. Rather than challenge that notion, I shall report that F. A. Davis has vigorously joined the revolution. We have spit in the eye of adversity, which means we have worked through the corporate version of manic-depression associated with this decision. Even a bantamweight technocrat, like myself, has found the time to "repurpose" my paper clips and appreciate my wastebasket for its "functionality."
So how has life at F. A. Davis changed? Yes, in the past year we've filled up an additional 10,000 square feet of office space and 40,000 square feet of new warehouse space. But more dramatically, the culture has changed. We've spent so much time with the technically gifted, that we've even begun to trust them. And I guess we better, because computer experts have officially become a part of us. The compatibility of this coexistence has vastly improved. We have grown to appreciate their uncanny ability to rationalize system failure while making it sound like the overall plan. We've even forgiven them for making their explanations irrefutable.
But we especially marvel and amuse at their sense of measuring time. Do we have a choice? For the uninitiated, I offer this key. It should help you through the arduous process of technical interpretation.
One second = the amount of delay deemed intolerable when summoning information to your computer screen.
One minute = having suffered through the above delay, the amount of time it takes to generate an avalanche of support for purchasing double the memory currently in use.
One hour = having gotten approval for the above, the amount of time it takes to prepare a formal explanation as to why your new equipment is suddenly obsolete (typing is not their forte).
One week = at least 7 days.
Two weeks = an eternity, especially when used to answer the question "when will it be working?" If computer science was medical science and your physician gave you two weeks to live, cancel the appointment with the estate attorney and go buy a new suit.
One month = considerably less than two weeks.
When our digital pipe dreams become a reality, I can go back to glorifying the niche that only F.A. Davis occupies. Chances are it won't go out of style. But for now, we are busily being the F. A. Davis of today, while preparing diligently to be the F.A. Davis of tomorrow.
And if you're finally satisfied with your experience installing a new information system, by all means take your MIS people out to lunch...let's say in about two weeks.
