University of Arizona Press First Editions — A Collector's Authority Guide

If you pull a hardcover off the archaeology or natural-history shelf in a Tucson estate library and the ISBN starts with 0-8165, you are holding a book published by the University of Arizona Press. Founded in 1959 as a department of the University of Arizona, UA Press has grown into one of the most significant academic publishers in the American Southwest, with more than 1,600 titles in print and a catalog that spans archaeology, anthropology, borderlands studies, environmental science, Native American literature, Latina/o writing, Sonoran Desert natural history, and the space sciences. The press publishes approximately 55 new titles per year and operates from its offices at 1510 East University Boulevard in Tucson. For collectors of Southwest books, UA Press titles represent a deep and consistently rewarding area of the field. This page is the definitive collector's reference for identifying, evaluating, and understanding University of Arizona Press first editions across the full arc of the press's history. If you have UA Press books or any other Southwestern volumes to donate, NMLP accepts any condition and any quantity through my free Albuquerque-area pickup service.

I encounter UA Press titles regularly through NMLP intake, particularly when processing libraries from retired University of Arizona faculty, Tucson-area estate downsizings, and the personal collections of Southwest archaeologists and environmental scientists. The press's catalog intersects nearly every collecting area covered on this site — Native American literature, Southwest archaeology, Zuni and Hopi cultural scholarship, borderlands history, and environmental writing. Understanding UA Press conventions is essential for anyone working seriously with Southwestern academic books.

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

Press History by Era

1959–1970: Founding and Early Catalog

The University of Arizona Press was established in 1959 as a department of the University of Arizona, charged with publishing scholarly and regional books that reflected the research strengths of the institution and the broader Arizona university system. The founding was deliberate — Arizona's three state universities (the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona State University in Tempe, and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff) each contributed scholarly activity across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities of the Southwest, and the new press was positioned to serve all three campuses as a conduit between Arizona scholarship and the larger academic world.

The press's earliest titles concentrated on the subject areas that remain its strengths today: anthropology, archaeology, and the history of the American Southwest. The Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona, a peer-reviewed monograph series sponsored by the School of Anthropology, launched alongside the press in 1959 and has continued without interruption. These early monographs focused on the archaeology and ethnography of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico — the Hohokam, the Mogollon, the Ancestral Puebloans, and the living indigenous communities of the region.

The press's location in Tucson was consequential. The University of Arizona was already emerging as a major center for desert ecology, planetary science, and Southwestern anthropology. The Arizona State Museum, one of the oldest and largest anthropology museums in the country, was on campus. Kitt Peak National Observatory was under construction in the Quinlan Mountains southwest of Tucson. The Sonoran Desert surrounded the campus. These institutional and geographic assets shaped the press's identity from the outset and gave it natural advantages in subject areas that no other university press could match.

1970–1990: Expansion into Literature and Space Sciences

The 1970s marked a decisive transformation. In 1971, the press launched Sun Tracks: An American Indian Literary Series, one of the first publishing programs in the United States dedicated exclusively to creative works by Native American writers. Sun Tracks was groundbreaking — at a time when major trade publishers showed little interest in Native American poetry, fiction, or visual art, UA Press created a permanent institutional home for this literature. The series would eventually publish more than eighty volumes by distinguished artists including Joy Harjo, N. Scott Momaday, Simon J. Ortiz, Carter Revard, Luci Tapahonso, and Ofelia Zepeda. Joy Harjo, who would become the twenty-third United States Poet Laureate in 2019, published several of her early poetry collections through Sun Tracks. The series fundamentally altered the publishing world for Native American creative writing and remains one of the most important literary series in American academic publishing.

Three years later, in 1974, astronomer Tom Gehrels founded the University of Arizona Space Science Series. Gehrels, a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona and the founder of the Spacewatch asteroid-survey program, envisioned a series of large-format reference volumes that would bring together the world's leading researchers on topics in planetary science. The first volume, Planets, Stars and Nebulae Studied with Photopolarimetry, established the format: multi-author compendiums running to several hundred pages, rigorously peer-reviewed, and designed as both current-state-of-knowledge summaries and frameworks for future research. Gehrels edited thirty volumes before his death in 2011. Landmark titles in the series include Asteroids (1979), Planetary Satellites (1977), Protostars and Planets (1979), and Saturn (1984). Since 2000, volumes in the Space Science Series have been produced in collaboration with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

Through the 1980s the press expanded its borderlands and Latin American studies catalog. The U.S.–Mexico border region — a geographic and cultural landscape that Tucson inhabits more directly than almost any other university city in the country — became a defining subject area. Scholarship on immigration, border policy, transnational culture, and the political economy of the borderlands found a natural home at UA Press. The press also deepened its commitment to environmental science and Sonoran Desert natural history, publishing foundational works on desert ecology, ethnobiology, and conservation biology in collaboration with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

1990–Present: Digital Era and New Series

In 1994, the press launched the Camino del Sol: A Latina/o Literary Series, founded by poet and editor Ray Gonzalez. Camino del Sol complemented Sun Tracks by creating a dedicated publishing home for Chicana/o and Latina/o poetry, fiction, and essays from both emerging and established writers. The series name — Road of the Sun — evoked the Sonoran landscape and the hemispheric literary traditions the series aimed to serve. Together, Sun Tracks and Camino del Sol established UA Press as the preeminent academic publisher of Indigenous and Latina/o creative writing in the United States.

The Southwest Center Series further refined the press's regional identity, publishing critical new books on the peoples, places, and landscapes of the southwestern United States, northwestern Mexico, and the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. The series encompassed monographs, translations, editions of important historical documents, reissues of previously published works, and interdisciplinary studies in history, anthropology, geography, natural history, and ethnobiology.

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Studies in Natural History series, based on symposia organized by the Desert Museum, brought together regionally and nationally recognized experts on desert ecology, geology, environmental history, and conservation. These volumes represent some of the most authoritative published scholarship on the natural history of the Sonoran Desert ecosystem.

Today, under the direction of Kathryn Conrad — a past president of the Association of University Presses — UA Press continues to publish across its core subject areas while expanding into open-access digital publishing through the Open Arizona initiative. The press distributes through the Chicago Distribution Center and remains a department of the University of Arizona, housed within the University of Arizona Libraries.

Key Series and Subject Areas

UA Press organizes much of its catalog into named series, each with its own editorial identity and collector profile. The major series that matter for collectors:

First Edition Identification

Identifying University of Arizona Press first editions requires understanding how the press's copyright-page conventions evolved across its six-decade history. The conventions changed meaningfully across eras, and they differ from trade-publisher norms in ways that matter for collectors. Here is the complete identification framework, organized by the elements you will encounter on the copyright page.

The ISBN Prefix: 978-0-8165

The University of Arizona Press ISBN prefix is 978-0-8165 (or the older ten-digit equivalent, 0-8165). Any book with an ISBN beginning with this prefix was published by UA Press. This is the fastest single identification tool when examining books from estate libraries where the dust jacket may be missing and the title-page imprint is worn or ambiguous. The ISBN system was adopted by American publishers in the early 1970s, so the press's earliest titles from the 1960s will not carry ISBNs and must be identified by the publisher imprint on the title page and copyright page. For background on ISBN-based publisher identification across all regional presses, see the Publisher Identification hub.

Copyright Page Conventions by Era

1959–early 1970s titles: Like most academic presses of this period, UA Press did not routinely include an explicit "First edition" or "First printing" statement on the copyright page. The standard practice was to note only subsequent printings or revised editions. If the copyright page of an early UA Press book carries only the copyright notice, the publisher imprint, and the Library of Congress catalog card number — with no mention of "Second printing," "Revised edition," or similar language — you are almost certainly looking at a first printing. This is the negative-evidence method: the absence of later-printing language is the identifier.

Late 1970s transition: Through the late 1970s and early 1980s, UA Press began adopting the number line (printer's key) convention that was becoming standard across American publishing. During this transitional period you will encounter both the older convention (no statement on first printings, later printings noted) and the newer number-line system on different titles from the same year. There is no clean cutoff date.

Post-1985 titles: From approximately 1985 onward, UA Press used the number line consistently. The standard format is a descending or ascending sequence of numbers printed on the copyright page. The lowest number in the sequence indicates the printing number. If the numeral 1 is present in the line, the book is a first printing. If the lowest number is 2, the publisher has removed the 1 and the book is a second printing. Some UA Press number lines also encode the year of printing alongside the impression number. This convention is reliable and straightforward for any collector familiar with reading number lines.

Edition Statements and What They Mean

UA Press uses "edition" in the academic-press sense, which differs from trade-publisher usage. A "Second edition" or "Revised and expanded edition" at UA Press indicates substantive changes to the text — new chapters, updated scholarship, additional data, revised conclusions. This is not the same as a "second printing," which is an unchanged reimpression of the same text. In the Space Science Series, for example, entirely new volumes on the same planetary body (such as Asteroids and its successors Asteroids II, Asteroids III, and Asteroids IV) are considered new works rather than revised editions of the original. For collectors, the first printing of the first edition is the target. Later printings of the first edition have secondary interest. Revised editions and successor volumes are separate collecting objects.

Library of Congress Data

UA Press titles routinely include Library of Congress catalog card numbers (LCCN) on 1960s and early 1970s books and Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) data blocks on post-1970s titles. The CIP block provides the Library of Congress classification, subject headings, and the ISBN. While the CIP data does not directly indicate printing number, it does confirm the publisher and can help distinguish a UA Press original edition from a reprint by another house. The CIP block is also useful for confirming the original publication date when examining a book whose dust jacket and title page are damaged or missing.

Binding and Cloth

UA Press binding conventions followed the general trajectory of American academic publishing. Titles from the 1960s were typically bound in cloth-covered boards in conservative academic colors — navy, dark green, brown, and tan. Through the 1970s the press used a mix of cloth and cloth-effect paper-covered boards. From the 1980s onward, most UA Press hardcovers use Holliston-grade library cloth or equivalent. Simultaneous paperback editions became standard from approximately the mid-1970s onward; the hardcover first printing is the collector's target when both formats exist. The Space Science Series volumes present a distinctive physical form — large-format hardcovers with substantial page counts, often exceeding 500 pages, in heavyweight cloth bindings designed for reference-library use.

Dust Jackets

Dust jacket survival is a significant condition factor for UA Press collecting, just as it is for all academic presses. Because UA Press titles enter university and public libraries at disproportionately high rates, dust jackets are routinely discarded by institutional catalogers. A UA Press first edition from the 1960s through the 1980s in the original dust jacket is meaningfully scarcer than the same title without the jacket. Pre-1975 UA Press dust jackets tend toward conservative academic typography; post-1980 jackets increasingly feature photographic covers, maps, and illustrated designs, particularly for the Southwest Center Series and the natural-history titles. The Anthropological Papers series monographs were typically issued in paper wrappers rather than cloth-and-jacket, so the wrapper condition is the relevant preservation factor for those titles.

The Most Collected UA Press Titles

The following titles and categories represent the core of University of Arizona Press first-edition collecting. I have organized them by collecting tier. No dollar amounts — tier language reflects relative demand and scarcity within the UA Press catalog.

Top Tier

• Joy Harjo, early Sun Tracks poetry collections — Harjo (Mvskoke/Creek Nation) published several of her formative poetry collections through UA Press before her appointment as United States Poet Laureate in 2019. First printings of her early Sun Tracks titles, particularly signed copies, occupy the highest tier of UA Press collectibility. Her work connects to the Native American literature collecting pillar.
• Tom Gehrels (editor), Space Science Series founding volumes — The first volumes in the series, including Planets, Stars and Nebulae Studied with Photopolarimetry (1974), Planetary Satellites (1977), Asteroids (1979), and Protostars and Planets (1979), are landmark references in planetary science. First printings of these early volumes are scarce in the secondary market because institutional libraries absorbed most copies and rarely deaccessioned them. Gehrels is a closed signature pool (1925–2011).
• N. Scott Momaday, Sun Tracks titles — Momaday published poetry and prose through the Sun Tracks series. While his most famous work, House Made of Dawn, was published by Harper and Row, and The Way to Rainy Mountain was published by UNM Press, his UA Press Sun Tracks contributions carry substantial collector interest, particularly signed copies.
• Early Anthropological Papers monographs (1959–1970s) — The first numbered volumes in the Anthropological Papers series are scarce in any condition and extremely scarce in fine condition. These small-run academic monographs were produced for specialist audiences and institutional libraries. Individual volumes addressing major archaeological sites or cultures carry particular interest among Southwest archaeology collectors.

Upper-Middle Tier

• Simon J. Ortiz, Sun Tracks poetry and prose — Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo) is one of the foundational voices in contemporary Native American literature. His Sun Tracks volumes, particularly early printings and signed copies, carry consistent collector demand.
• Luci Tapahonso, Sun Tracks poetry — Tapahonso (Navajo Nation) published important poetry collections through UA Press. First printings in the Sun Tracks series hold well among poetry collectors.
• Ofelia Zepeda, poetry and linguistic scholarship — Zepeda (Tohono O'odham) is a Regents Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and one of the most important scholars of O'odham language and culture. Her creative and scholarly works published through UA Press are sought by collectors of Native American scholarship.
• Camino del Sol founding-era titles (1994–early 2000s) — The earliest volumes in the Camino del Sol series, particularly award-winning titles and signed copies, carry meaningful collector interest as foundational documents in Latina/o literary publishing.
• Space Science Series, Saturn (1984), Mars (1992), and later Gehrels-edited volumes — These multi-author reference volumes command respect among science-book collectors and working planetary scientists. Condition is critical — these are large, heavy books that show handling wear quickly.

Solid Collecting Tier

• Southwest Center Series entries — Individual volumes by prominent borderlands historians, anthropologists, and environmental writers. Signed copies and association copies elevate individual titles above the base tier.
• Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Studies in Natural History — Authoritative desert ecology and conservation volumes. These have a dedicated following among natural-history book collectors.
• Borderlands and Latin American studies monographs — The press's extensive catalog of U.S.–Mexico border scholarship. Individual titles by prominent scholars carry collector interest, particularly those that have become required reading in university courses.
• Carter Revard, Sun Tracks poetry — Revard (Osage) contributed important volumes to the Sun Tracks series. First printings in fine condition are uncommon.
• Later Space Science Series volumes — Post-2000 volumes produced in collaboration with the Lunar and Planetary Institute. These are current reference works with strong institutional demand but limited secondary-market trading.
• Teaching Gloria E. Anzaldua and related borderlands scholarship — Works engaging with Chicana feminist theory and borderlands literary criticism. The press's contribution to Anzaldua studies carries specific academic-collector interest.

Condition and Grading Notes

UA Press books present specific condition challenges that are characteristic of academic-press publishing. The primary issue is institutional provenance. Because UA Press is an academic publisher serving a major research university, a substantial percentage of its print runs enter university and public libraries. Ex-library copies are common, particularly for pre-1990 titles. Ex-library indicators include spine labels, pocket remnants, date-due stamps, perforated pages, security strips, and — most damagingly — library rebinding that replaces the original cloth boards and destroys the dust jacket.

Print runs for UA Press titles are characteristic of academic-press economics. Standard monographs and scholarly works typically see initial print runs in the range of 1,500 to 3,000 copies, with literary titles in the Sun Tracks and Camino del Sol series sometimes running slightly higher depending on anticipated course-adoption demand. The Space Science Series volumes, despite their specialist audience, sometimes had larger initial runs because of strong institutional-library demand worldwide. The Anthropological Papers monographs often had the smallest runs — some early numbers may have been printed in quantities below 1,000. These small print runs, combined with high institutional-absorption rates and low survival rates for copies in collectible condition, make fine first printings of many UA Press titles genuinely scarce.

Dust jacket survival rates are lower for UA Press titles than for comparable trade-publisher books from the same decades. Academic libraries discard jackets routinely. A UA Press first edition from the 1960s or 1970s in the original unclipped dust jacket with no institutional markings is a genuinely uncommon object. The Anthropological Papers wrappers are even more vulnerable — these thin paper covers chip, tear, and fade with handling and shelving.

Binding quality is generally good. UA Press used quality cloth through the 1960s and 1970s, and the Holliston-grade library cloth adopted later holds up well to normal handling. The most common binding defect in older UA Press titles is sun fading to the spine cloth, particularly on books shelved near windows in Arizona's intense sunlight. Interior paper quality varies by decade; pre-1975 UA Press titles sometimes used acid-content paper that can show foxing and toning, while post-1985 titles generally used acid-free stock. The Space Science Series volumes, due to their large format and heavy page counts, are susceptible to binding stress at the hinges — a tight, clean copy of an early Space Science volume is worth noting.

For the NMLP authentication methodology, UA Press titles are evaluated using the standard six-point first-edition framework with particular attention to the negative-evidence method on pre-1975 copyright pages and the number-line reading on post-1985 titles.

The Collecting Market

The UA Press collecting market operates in three tiers, as with most academic-press first editions. No dollar amounts — the tiers describe relative demand, scarcity, and collector intensity.

Tier One: Trophy titles. Early Sun Tracks volumes by Joy Harjo, N. Scott Momaday, and Simon J. Ortiz in first printing. The founding volumes of the Space Science Series in first printing, particularly those edited by Gehrels. Association copies inscribed by UA-connected authors to colleagues — a Harjo inscribed to a fellow poet, an Ortiz presentation copy, a Zepeda signed to a linguistic colleague. These are the items that specialist dealers, ABAA members, and institutional acquisition programs seek actively. They trade through established antiquarian channels.

Tier Two: Solid collector demand. Tapahonso and Zepeda titles in first printing. Later Sun Tracks and Camino del Sol volumes by award-winning authors, signed. Mid-period Space Science Series volumes. Prominent Southwest Center Series entries by recognized borderlands scholars. Condition matters significantly — non-ex-library copies with intact dust jackets command meaningful premiums over institutional copies. Signed copies consistently outperform unsigned copies at this tier.

Tier Three: Broad regional interest. The standard UA Press catalog across all subject areas — the archaeology monographs, the anthropological studies, the environmental-science dissertations, the borderlands policy analyses, the natural-history symposia proceedings. First printings have modest secondary-market interest; signed copies or association copies elevate individual titles. This tier constitutes the bulk of UA Press titles encountered through NMLP intake, and it forms the working backbone of any serious Southwest academic-reference library.

Signed copies deserve specific note. Because UA Press authors include University of Arizona faculty, Tucson-based writers, and scholars who regularly attend conferences and readings in the Southwest, signed and inscribed copies surface with some regularity in Tucson and broader Arizona estate libraries. A retired UA professor's personal library may contain presentation copies from colleagues across decades of Southwest scholarship. These association copies — where the inscription connects the author to a known figure in the field — carry collector interest beyond the base level of a signed first edition.

The Arizona–New Mexico Connection

Collectors focused on New Mexico books will encounter UA Press titles constantly. The overlap between Arizona and New Mexico scholarship in the Southwest is enormous, and UA Press has published extensively on subjects that are central to New Mexico collecting. The Anthropological Papers cover archaeological sites across both states. The borderlands scholarship addresses the entire U.S.–Mexico boundary region. Sun Tracks authors include writers from New Mexico pueblos and nations — Simon J. Ortiz is from Acoma Pueblo, and Luci Tapahonso is from the Navajo Nation, which spans both states. The Space Science Series connects to Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories through the broader astrophysics and planetary science research community.

The Publisher Identification hub covers the full landscape of regional publishers and how to tell them apart. Understanding the distinction between UA Press (978-0-8165) and UNM Press (978-0-8263) is one of the most basic and essential skills in Southwest book identification. The two presses complement each other — they share subject areas, overlap in author rosters, and together account for a substantial portion of the Southwest academic publishing world. The collector's glossary defines terms used throughout this page.