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Ideas shouldn't be bounded by geography
One of the things you learn very early on is that we are an independent publisher
and we always will be.
Whether it is evaluation, whether it's communication and media studies, we are able to take a long term
view thanks to the fact that we are an independent company and that still holds true today.
SAGE is proud and honored to be a leading independent publisher.
Since 1965, we've been fostering scholarship and research.
Our mission remains straightforward
disseminate teaching and research on a global scale.
We see a future where SAGE is active and influential
when it comes to educating future generations of scholars.
We had a very clear vision of what SAGE was meant to do in terms of disseminating the results of
scholarship, sharing with one's peers, whether it was in your home country or abroad.
SAGE really began as a social science publisher
and Sara and George believed in the importance of the social sciences
Today, 45+ years later SAGE is still synonymous with publishing in the social sciences
We have expanded well beyond that into engineering and medicine but to this day
many scholars and many librarians still know SAGE as the social science publisher in the world
Don't just continue in the silos that existed in the 19th century
Let's broaden the way we look at usable knowledge
Early in our history, Sara, in identifying things that we can do different than the rest of the publishing
industry recognized that research methods wasn't just something that scholars around the world do
but actually need to be informed about and it was no less a reason to actually do publishing
than any of the other substantiaries, whether it was sociology, or psychology, or communication,
but that was a really innovative breakthrough.
One of the most important guiding attributes of SAGE
is that we are an independent publisher and we always will be.
It's an organizing principle that runs through the organization
It's part of our cultural spine, which enables us to be long termists in our approach.
And that means we are not chasing a short term ROI.
We are thinking about building sustainably for the future.
It is an approach that allows SAGE to be the perfect setting for authors to start new disciplines.
It was SAGE that really made the research...the sustained analytical discourse about
african and african phenomena legitimate as a social science in a disciplinary field
There was such a charisma of risk-taking that she had that was so incredible
that she was a visionary in the sense of being able to see the value of this
SAGE is in the education business.
Everything we do is about education, about dissemination of research, about the dissemination of
educational information or about pedagogy, helping people learn.
I frequently meet world renowned authors and professors who when they find out I'm from SAGE
approach me because they want to tell me that it was SAGE and it
was SAGE books that got them through graduate school.
Another amazing principle of our organization is commitment to supporting education and scholarship
believing they are intrinsically good things creating healthy minds and healthy cultures
and because of that orientation, we've been able not just to publish textbooks but innovative,
interesting textbooks that retain the author voice and ensure that what the student is getting
is an education engaging them with a need to think critically for themselves and turn the information into knowledge
Without authors, SAGE ceases to exist.
The authors produce the content. We can help them, we work with them to create it, it is a partnership.
The authors care passionately about their books, the way a mother would care about her newborn baby
and so it's really important that our role be not only professional and effective
but also caring and passionate about the work in the way that the author is.
An author comes to us with something that often is a big chunk of their life.
They're coming with this thing that is very fragile and they are very worried about and they have spent
years working on it. They want to know that we will be there for them and
we will work in partnership with them for a long time,
that their interests and our interests coincide.
Sustainable relations are at the heart of what we care about.
We do not believe in a one size fits all approach but value the individuality of our partners
and our committed to working together to ensure their long term future.
SAGE captures both dimensions of what our society partners are looking for.
On the one hand, a publisher that is big enough to deliver, has a global presence,
and professionalism of the major global players, but on the other side,
a publisher to whom every single journal and book that we publish is regarded as something
profoundly important and one that we care about deeply throughout the whole business.
I think the heart and soul behind SAGE Publications is Sara Miller Mccune.
The reason I say that, is because after the death of George Mccune, I said to myself
hmmm I wonder if the company is going to close down and fold
but from what I've seen the company just got stronger and stronger and that was a great feeling.
What if we weren't doing it. What if we and all of the academic publishing in the world weren't publishing
the latest academic research, where would we be?
SAGE is very very proud to be one of the leading publishers in the world, one of the
top ten academic publishers in the world and we are what we believe is the leading independent
academic publisher in the world. We literally publish all over the globe.
We distribute all over the world, and we are very proud of what we have accomplished.
One of the many things that distinguishes SAGE in the marketplace is the fact that we welcome
our international standing and subsequent growth in the industry.
We believe that ideas shouldn't be limited by geography.
When we take the legacy of our research methods publishing,
what you see is that when you are doing statistical analysis, that's true whether you live in
Canada, Peru, or Jordan. Therefore we are able to publish a lot of material that can actually create
communities that go way beyond the original sources.
Sara's interest is in publishing for a purpose and not publishing simply as a commercial business.
Her commitment to social justice extends significantly beyond supporting solid publishing
and includes direct involvement in many social causes as a philanthropist.
This animating spirit is what makes SAGE so unique.
Scholarly communication, including the way we disseminate and access information is changing dramatically.
To be a trusted partner, SAGE recognizes this evolutionary fact and embraces the necessary change
whether that change involves creating new platforms for communication such as social media communities
or by creating new research tools, we work with our partners to provide a service that meets their needs.
In academic publishing, there are two things that are profoundly important to the success of our business:
On the one side there is the commercial business of succeeding in building an economically viable,
successful publishing company.
On the other side, there is achieving all of the qualitative goals of publishing:
The quality of the content we are publishing, the dissemination,
the reach of the impact of that work in the world at large and so I think publishers tend to be stronger
on one side or the other on that equation and
SAGE's mark has been in the success in doing both of those things really really well.
Authors are crying out for that combination. They want us to be effective enough to actually
disseminate their ideas but they want us to be sufficiently aligned with their values so they
actually feel like they have a natural home.
We have a security of knowing the future of the ownership of the company that
comes from Sara's estate plan and that underpins our ability to think for the long term.
It's really hard to imagine what it will be like in 100 years, but I know with certainty that
universities will still exist, and they will still be full of students who are in the process of learning
and in the process of higher education.
I can't imagine what SAGE will look like, how the people will work, what tools they will have but
what I believe with absolute certainty is that SAGE will be producing material that those university
students need 100 years from now, just as they needed it 100 years ago.
If we see ourselves as publishers of books and journals then our future is very limited.
If we see ourselves as the creator of content for education or higher education,
then our future is limitless.