WiLS August 2015 Partner Interview: Andrew Gardner, Sage Publications

At WiLS, we want to bring valuable information to our library partners, including information about the missions and big ideas of the publishers they may already do business with.  Each month, WiLS will interview a partner in order to bridge the gap and open the door to valuable collaborations.  This month, we are delighted to share insights from Andrew Gardner of Sage Publications.

These interviews are part of a series of interviews with both WiLS library and vendor / publisher partners.  Your feedback is appreciated.  If you have any to offer on this article, or suggestions for upcoming interviews, contact Andrea Coffin at .

Tell us about your company’s background.

SAGE was founded in 1965 as a social science publisher by 24-year-old Sara Miller McCune who had a vision for the broad dissemination of research and teaching. Today, we have expanded well beyond the social sciences into other areas and publish more than 850 journals and over 3,500 books and reference works, as well as several databases across the social sciences business, humanities,  science, technology and medicine.

Sara understood research methods to be something scholars do, AND something they want to be informed about. Supporting the development of research methods as a field of study is one of our earliest and most innovative achievements and one that we continue to champion through new tools. SAGE was also one of the first publishers to give sustained analytical discourse to African American studies, communication, and many interdisciplinary fields of study in the social sciences.

Sara has ensured that SAGE will be an independent company indefinitely. As such, we have more long-term goals to build content and engage new areas of study as opposed to being constantly preoccupied with a short term ROI.

We believe that engaged scholarship is at the heart of any healthy society and that education is intrinsically valuable. We want to play a creative role in society by disseminating teaching and research on a global scale. Long-term relationships with authors, editors, researchers, and librarians are our daily focus.

Why do you, personally, choose to work with libraries?

While it’s true that I kind of “fell” into publishing in 2008 after working in a different industry for years, libraries have always held a certain fascination for me.  While taking AP classes in high school, the teachers would bring us to the University of Georgia Library to do our research and I was amazed by the sheer masses of information of all types being held in one place.  A more current answer might be that I enjoy what I do and therefore the “choice” to do so is easy.  The transformation of the physical place as the main source for the information to web based information storage and the facility with which information can now be gathered is also of interest to me.  I enjoy pulling and looking at usage statistics and trying to determine which libraries might be helped by the information or better versions of products.

What do you like to know about the libraries you work with? What helps you better understand their needs?

I always like to get a macro view of things.  An initial interview with someone at the library who can paint the picture of the general philosophy of the library & institution is a great help.  The other question I like to ask is something along the lines of “If budget were not a concern, what would you want to have from our product roster and why?”  Sometimes people can get bogged down in budget concerns and therefore aren’t candid about what they really want. Even if there is no budget for something, knowing that it is an area of interest is helpful to more fully understand the library and institution.

What big ideas are being worked on at your company? What problems are being solved?

There are LOTS of big ideas always in the works at SAGE.   The newest and most impressive in my opinion is SAGE Video.  The content is usable for undergrad all the way through to high level professional research. Recent studies specifically on students and the video medium support this type of product launch and the care with which we develop it.

Most people know that social science research methods are a focus of our publishing program.  SAGE Research Methods Datasets is a collection of teaching datasets that support the teaching of quantitative and qualitative analytical methods.

For nearly 50 years, we’ve been publishing in the business and management arena. In a digital world, new challenges for researchers come along and looking for relevant news, data, and case studies is different than it was in the 70’s. To that end we are launching a suite of business resources:  the most current news, cases, and statistics. The first was SAGE Business Researcher, which presents overviews of pressing topics and a solid foundation of background information needed for deeper research.

SAGE Business Stats is exportable statistics from more than 80 different government and non-government sources for key information measures for the US. We will also launch a collection of business case studies in 2016.

Research Funding:  SAGE has supported initiatives from key science groups to promote and protect research. We have participated in over 100 meetings with lawmakers or their staffs to educate them on positive impact that social and behavioral science research makes on society as a whole.

How can librarians become partners in product or training development?

SAGE is constantly in dialogue with the library community to ensure that we understand how we can meet their needs, how our products will be used, and how they fit into library systems.

Product Development: For all of our market research and product development, we look for faculty, researchers, and librarians who will be candid and tell us what they really think.  If you are someone who has an unfiltered and informed point of view, you should contact Elisabeth Leonard, who leads our research program.  She’ll love talking with you.

Training Development: We offer training on all of our online products for new customers, trial participants, or librarians looking for more information. Heather Dray, formerly the Director of Library and Information Resources at AIU Atlanta, can show how SAGE products fit your needs from a librarian’s perspective.  We love to partner with librarians to provide campus-wide trainings on any SAGE product.