C-SPAN Book TV to feature University Press of Florida

January 31, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The University Press of Florida will be the first scholarly press in the nation to be featured on C-SPAN Book TV.

C-SPAN’s new Book TV Bus will visit the campus Thursday to film vignettes that will be used on air at the end of various Book TV shows over the next several months.

The 45-foot-long custom coach is a mobile television production studio that travels the country promoting Book TV’s unique non-fiction programs, which air every weekend on C-SPAN2. The Book TV Bus, launched last September, builds on the legacy of the C-SPAN School Buses, which have been on the road since 1993, informing students and teachers about the network and its value as an educational resource.

The University Press of Florida, now in its 60th year of publishing, is considered one of the top three university presses in the Southeast. Book TV will highlight UPF’s list of political science and history titles, as well as its in-house design and pre-press activities.

After filming at the UPF building on 15th Street, the Book TV Bus will park at the engineering lot across from the Reitz Student Union from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday. Students, faculty and staff are invited to tour the state-of-the-art studio set. From 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, the bus will be at Goerings Bookstore, 3433 W. University Ave., where master’s graduate students from the English department’s creative writing program will read from their poetry and fiction in progress.

Prior to the Gainesville visit, the Book TV Bus will be at the Ocala Public Library, 2720 E. Silver Springs Blvd., at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. Award-winning nature writer Bill Belleville will read and sign advance copies of his upcoming book “Losing It All to Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape” (UPF, 2006). Belleville, accompanied by Ocala Mayor Randy Ewers, will discuss the development and sustainability challenges faced by the city of Ocala.

For more information about the bus or authors: www.booktv.org/booktvbus/ and www.upf.com.