John Ziemer: Brought East Asian Monographs back to life. Photo by Rose Lincoln.

John Ziemer spreads out the colorful book jackets on his worktable with a pride that his self-effacing manner does not entirely conceal.

"Yes, they are quite nice looking," he says. "Scholars will tell you they don't buy books for their covers, but they're convinced their colleagues do."

Ziemer has reason to be proud. In his two years as editor of Harvard's East Asian Monographs he has succeeded in awakening the series from a publishing coma. In the years before Ziemer arrived, the imprint, which is distributed through Harvard University Press, was putting out one or two titles a year was and on the brink of being disbanded entirely.

Now the series, which began in 1955, the first of its kind in the United States, has come back to life. With 15 titles this year alone, it is once again one of the nation's most important imprints in East Asian social sciences and humanities.

But there is more to Ziemer's achievement than simply expanding the list of titles or packaging them in nifty dust jackets. To young scholars hoping for viable academic careers, to senior scholars interested in the survival of their disciplines, Ziemer is something of a hero, the slayer of a very nasty dragon born of the economics of academic publishing.

The trouble begins with a decline in academic book sales over the past 15 years. Ziemer says that when he began in publishing in the mid-1980s, most academic books had print runs of 1,500 to 2,000, the major portion of which would be purchased by university libraries.

But today, libraries can no longer afford to buy every academic book that comes out, as they once were able to. Budgets have been slashed while costs have risen, particularly the cost of subscribing to academic journals.

According to the Association of Research Libraries, which represents university libraries, expenditures for journals rose 142 percent from 1986 to 1997. In the same period expenditures for books rose only 30 percent. This trend has translated into libraries buying fewer books in order to maintain their journal subscriptions. The result has been a 13 percent drop in the number of books purchased.

Academic publishers have responded in various ways -- reducing print runs, increasing prices, and, the most troublesome change, turning away manuscripts on more specialized subjects whose appeal might be relatively limited.

This policy catches younger scholars in a double bind. Most competitive colleges and universities expect tenure candidates to have at least one published book on their resumes. And in order to demonstrate academic competence, the book must be an in-depth study of some problem in the candidate's chosen field.

Yet these are the very books that many publishers are beginning to avoid in favor of more sure-fire money-makers -- books in trendy disciplines or which appeal to readers across disciplines. Many young scholars seeking to publish their first books encounter a discouraging lack of interest. Ultimately, through its effect on the tenure process, their failure to publish may jeopardize the survival of the discipline itself.

But Harvard's East Asian scholars decided that they could not let this happen.

"We have a duty to the field, an obligation to nurture new generations of scholars," said Peter Bol, professor of Chinese history and chairman of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations.

It was Bol along with several other senior East Asian scholars who sought out and recruited Ziemer, who, at the time, was editor- in-chief for production as well as acquiring editor in East Asian thought and literatures at Stanford University Press. Bol describes Ziemer unequivocally as "the leading East Asian humanities editor in the United States."

Stanford's current status as the foremost publisher of East Asian monographs in the humanities is entirely due to Ziemer's influence, Bol said. Now Harvard is benefiting from Ziemer's achievements on the West Coast.

"John brought his reputation with him," Bol said. "People knew we had a serious editor again."

It is a reputation that has the potential to draw scholars from around the world. Atsuko Sakaki, associate professor of Japanese literature, whose book Recontextualizing Texts: Narrative Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction is part of the imprint's spring/summer list, said that Ziemer's "reputation as arguably the most capable editor in the field of East Asian studies had been such that many who had previously published under his guidance would like to work with him again."

In addition to that reputation, Ziemer brought a thorough knowledge of desktop publishing (which he has used to drastically cut production costs) and a fierce work ethic. Except for the help of an occasional freelance editor and a recently hired assistant, Ziemer is East Asian Monographs. Bol said that he is known for coming to work early, leaving late, and working on weekends.

Another crucial factor in the imprint's resurgence is the number of titles Ziemer has published and their variety. The holder of a master's degree in Chinese from Stanford, Ziemer has studied in Taiwan and Kyoto, and has a working knowledge of both Chinese and Japanese. His expertise allows him to play an active and informed role in the selection of titles.

The current list includes some highly specialized works such as a study of Japan's rural elites in the early industrial period, a critical biography of an avant-garde Japanese poet, and a study of 16th- century Chinese religious texts. But it also includes books with broader appeal: a textbook on classical Chinese, an analysis of the Tokyo Disneyland.

The plan is for the more popular books to subvent (help pay for) the more specialized ones. So far, the plan is working. This year, Ziemer expects the imprint to break even, perhaps even make a slight profit.

The news is good, but for Ziemer economic success is no more than a means to an end.

"My primary concern is always quality," he said.