What Works for University Presses

The past few weeks have been brutal for academic presses. The University of Scranton Press and Rice University Press have both announced closures, even as Southern Methodist University Press has moved into a period of study regarding its sustainability.

Everyone knows the pressure that university budgets are undergoing these days, squeezing academic presses in two directions: Operating budgets are shrinking even as revenues from library and consumer purchases are declining. The fact remains, however, that there is still an important role possible for academic presses. They are repositories of great scholarly traditions, even as they find ways to extend those great traditions and even build new ones. Most professors who publish find that their pedagogy is informed by their scholarly activities. The trick, of course, is figuring out a business model that is functional in the long run.

In noting the troubles that surround presses, the reality, of course, is that there are likewise other imprints that function quite well. I doubt that anyone will ever call this era the golden age of academic publishing, but there are still many that provide important outlets for scholarship. Successful presses, however, don’t necessarily send out news releases about their statuses, which means that closure announcements skew the news in distinct ways.

What suggestions would you offer for the improvement of scholarly presses? Do you know of models that seem to be working?