Bill Cohen, Publisher/Owner

Bill Cohen graduated from Columbia College (Class of ’71) with an undergraduate degree in psychology. He jumped directly into the publishing industry with Human Sciences Press, now part of Plenum Press, a division of Springer Science+Business Media. Starting as a clerk-typist, Bill became Director of Marketing within a year, and was in charge of all publicity and sales efforts for academic journal and book titles, managing a direct mail campaign reaching one million pieces a year.

At the age of 26, Bill left Human Sciences Press together with its president, Patrick McLaughlin, to launch The Haworth Press, Inc. The name was taken from the township of Haworth in the United Kingdom, which was home to the famous Bronte Sisters. At the same time, Bill spent nights and weekends at the School of Library Science at Columbia University to learn more about librarianship, particularly serials librarianship and the selection and acquisition of monographs.

Haworth Press began in Bill’s home office. From 1975 to 2006, the firm grew from publishing one peer-review academic journal to almost 200, and it published almost 5,000 monographs and texts. It eventually was housed in a multi-building office complex and had almost 200 employees at its Binghamton, New York, and Hazleton, Pennsylvania, sites.

Harrington Park Press, a Haworth Press imprint, focused on cross-over titles of interest to both academics and the educated public, with a special focus on pioneering LGBT topics, as well as psychology and health care. In 1994, Bill bought out Patrick’s shares in the firm and became the sole owner.

In early 2007, Bill divested the firm to the Taylor & Francis Group/Routledge, and joined them as a consultant for two years. He retained ownership and trademark rights for Harrington Park Press, which he decided to re-launch in late 2012.