Following a 7- to 8-percent decline in revenue last year, Yale University Press is contemplating shorter print runs and expanded digital efforts, the Yale Daily News reported today.

Academic publishers, which saw sales decline an average of 10 percent in the last half of 2008, have been besieged by the slumping economy and state and university budget cuts. Even though Yale’s European division had its best year yet, the press’s director, John Donatich, told the newspaper, overall sales have been soft.

The news from Yale, one of the largest university presses in the United States, followed by just a few days the University of Michigan Press’s announcement that it will restructure as a unit of the campus library and will become a pioneer in digital publishing. —David Shieh