University Presses Category

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University Press survival …. through open access

By
Karen Fischer
– January 15, 2010Posted in: University Presses

from Inside HigherEd, November 4, 2009

excerpts:

…the survival of the Utah State University Press has been in doubt, with fears that deep cuts being made to public higher education in Utah would end up killing off the publishing outlet.

…the press will survive — in part by embracing a new model of organization (becoming part of the university library) and a new business model (embracing open access, in which most publications would be available online and free).

While both of those changes are significant, key aspects of the press’s identity and mission will not change. It will continue to be a peer-reviewed scholarly publisher, and plans to continue its highly regarded work in fields such as composition studies, folklore, poetry, environmental studies, and the history and culture of the West.

This is going to be a way for us to extend our reach and build momentum,” said Michael Spooner, director of the press.

This is not the first university press to make such a move.  University of Michigan Press was restructured as an academic unit in the libraries in March 2009. Read more about MPublishing at: http://www.press.umich.edu/digital/mpublishing/

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AAUP Report: Among Calls for Collaboration, a Plea to Reinvent University Presses

By
Karen Fischer
– July 23, 2009Posted in: Publishers, University Presses

Sarah Gold, Publishers Weekly — Library Journal, 6/25/2009

Excerpt:

Collaboration and cooperation were the bywords at this year’s annual meeting of the Association of American University Presses in Philadelphia, June 18-21, while a call for radical change of a “broken” business model came from the AAUP’s outgoing president, Alex Holzman, who urged presses to embrace a comprehensive e-book publishing program.

Numerous sessions with titles such as “Library-Press Cooperation,” “University and Press Collaborations” and “The Mellon Collaborative Publishing Grants: Reports from the Presses,” underscored Holzman’s point that today’s university press business model—plagued by declining monograph sales, heavy returns, and declining subsidies from parent institutions—is in need of serious revisions. Such revisions could involve closer ties with other academic departments and institutes within the parent institution.

As Nathan MacBrien, publications director for the University of California International and Area Studies, put it, at a time when every academic department, including university presses, must justify its existence, “collaborations make for institutional embeddedness” that can help guarantee a press’s future.

Speakers also addressed other forms of cooperation: allying with campus libraries (to which some presses are already institutionally joined at the hip) and working with other university presses with complementary strengths or overlapping interests to accomplish complex projects and achieve cost savings.

Read the rest of the article: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6667368.html?nid=2673&source=title&rid=

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