University Presses: A Need for Change
Last July, we wrote an article entitled "University Presses: A Time for Change?". A year later, we believe it is no longer a question.
A sense of urgency is building within the scholarly publishing industry
especially as this sector is traditionally slow to change their policies which
have been in effect for decades. Now more than ever, University presses are
realizing that they have to change and during the annual meeting of the
Association of American University Presses, the consensus was much the same:
act now.
The conference, entitled "Toward a Sustainable Future" gave
attendees a clear sense of urgency in addressing changes that face the
scholarly publishing industry especially. University presses, which are mostly
non-profit, are one of the many areas in Higher Education that are being hurt
by budget cuts. However, where a football team can wait another year for uniforms,
it is just not that simple in the publishing world. Not only do these presses
have to accommodate shrinking budgets, they also have to account for a rise in
demand for eBooks as well as trying to find ways to publish scholarly work that
doesn't fit the traditional book printing and distribution model. The
conference wanted to express that the world of books is changing and sticking
in the past will only hurt the ultimate goal of spreading knowledge.
One of the
main points that the conference brought up was the purpose behind university
publishing: to have an ongoing academic conversation between experts in the
field. Because these fields can be very specific, a university press often
publishes for a niche audience and may not publish more than 50 or 100 copies.
The main customers of these publications, libraries, also have to deal with
budget cuts and lack of funding. Therefore, they can't afford to buy these
niche publications and in turn university presses don't make any money. In
order to solve this problem, some presses have been publishing work that is
directed at a more general audience. These types of books have the potential to
generate more revenue just simply because of the larger target audience and, in
turn, will keep the presses afloat to publish some of the niche works they are
accustomed to publishing. However, traditionalists don't agree with this
solution. They feel the purpose of university presses is to encourage
scholarship on any topic, no matter how obscure. It is an ongoing debate
between scholars who feel affronted by the idea of producing these books and
members of the press who feel to keep the press going they have to break with
tradition. But, many presses have already started producing general audience
literature including coffee table books to generate revenue, and with success.
The digital publishing world is also one of the great
opportunities that university presses can utilize. Some presses, such as the
University of Wisconsin press, have already begun selling PDF-based eBooks with
most major institutional vendors. And, have just started selling to individual
customers via Amazon's Kindle store and their own website and are in the
process of adding additional vendors. Not only does the University of Wisconsin
offer eBooks, but all their journals are also offered in electronic format.
Both eBooks and journals cost less than their print counterpart. This price
differential could make all the difference for some customers and foster
academic conversation (the main purpose of a scholarly press). Alex
Halavais, a Quinnipiac professor who gave a talk called "Digital
Humanities Is Not an Oxymoron", stated that the main reason he digitized
his personal library because "I need to be able to access not just
journals, but books while I am traveling".[i][i] Anyone else with the same attitude would about
accessibility thoroughly benefit from university presses going digital.
Another aspect of the changing
world of words that university presses can utilize is social media. Advertising
online through social media such as Twitter, Facebook, online newsletters or a
blog can generate more interest as well as more recognition for a product.
Dafina Blacksher Diabate, Advertising Manager at Duke University Press, described
Duke's use of online advertising as "a matter of meeting the readers where
they are". Social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, present a
challenge for presses to become part of the community as opposed to alienating
it with elaborate marketing pitches. Kathryn Conrad, the University of Arizona
press's Interim Director states that they are trying to interact with their
Twitter community by "engag[ing] not only in talk about books and
publishing but about our state and local community, environment concerns,
indigenous rights issues, anything that related to what we publish".[ii][ii] Social media cannot only interest new readers but give
current customers a way to connect with the scholarly community as well as the
press itself.
Not everyone agrees with this push
for change. Some traditionalists believe that committing scholarly work to a
digital media dilutes the work. Since it is then financially possible for the
university presses to publish more work, some believe that this will dilute the
quality of the work published and therefore diminish the credibility of the
press. However, the presses have to realize this and therefore work hard to
continue to publish the same quality of work that they always have.
Whatever side of the change
spectrum you fall on, the one thing everyone must agree on is that there is a
need for change, now. Budget cuts are a reality faced by staff on a daily
basis, but the bright side is that they can provide new opportunities that
might not have been realized had the funding been there all along. Publishing
for a more general audience can reach out to new readers. Advertising through
social media can also accomplish this goal as well as give current readers a
place to voice their thoughts and opinions on issues that university presses
publications talk about. These are smaller steps for the university presses to
take. The biggest step, digitizing publications, is already being undertaken by
big name university presses. While digital publications may not take over the
print publications, the cheaper price and accessibility that they offer can
prove to be a saving point for the university press in this time of change.
[i]http://alex.halavais.net/the-new-university-press
[ii]http://aaupblog.aaupnet.org/?p=139
