Half a Century with Books: investigating the status of book publishing by the Department of Agrotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Book publishing is one of the measures of progress in any society. The main objective of the current research is to investigate the status of book publishing by the Department of Agrotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM) during nearly half a century of its establishment. The statistical population of the research includes all the books published by the Department since establishment in 1975 to 2022. A checklist was used to collect information and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The research findings showed that during the study period, 196 book titles were published in the Department, of which 79.6% and 20.4% were authored and translated, respectively. In total, 34 publishers contributed to the publication of books. The most significant number of books (85 titles) have been published by the FUM Press. Books on “Agroecology” were more frequent than books on other subjects, with a frequency of 27%. The most prolific member of the Department is Professor Alireza Koocheki, who authored or translated 88 books. In general, due to the newness of the major of “Seed Science and Technology” in the Department, it is necessary to pay more attention to translating and authoring books related to this subject