In Search of Solutions for Scholarly Publishing
Thursday, October 2, at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern timeCan scholarly publishing, the bulwark of academic research in the humanities and social sciences, be stabilized? Are any of the solutions being discussed realistic? Or do they focus too much on long-term fixes that may come too late? Can all the parties who have a stake in scholarly publishing come together to look at realistic steps that can be taken now? Can they begin to find a way to distribute the costs of publishing more widely?
University presses are facing severe financial constraints. The cost of scientific journals keeps rising, making it more and more difficult for libraries to buy books and journals in the humanities and social sciences. Junior faculty members need to publish books to be promoted, but they can't find publishers for monographs. Professional organizations have begun to call on their members to tackle what they call the looming "crisis in scholarly publishing." What is to be done to deal with that crisis?
» Understanding the Economic Burden of Scholarly Publishing (10/3/2003)
Cathy N. Davidson is vice provost for interdisciplinary studies and a professor of English at Duke University. The co-founder of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke, she is the author of many books, a past president of the American Studies Association, and a past editor of the journal American Literature. She will respond to questions and comments on Thursday, October 2, at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time. Advance questions are encouraged and may be posted now.
Karen Winkler (Moderator):
Hello, and welcome to today's Colloquy Live. I'm Karen Winkler, with The Chronicle Review, and I'll be the moderator for our chat with Cathy N. Davidson. A vice-provost of Duke University and a well-known scholar, Cathy wrote a recent essay in The Review proposing a number of concrete suggestions to aid academic publishing. The difficulties facing scholarly presses are of concern to many of you. Let's get the discussion under way.
Cathy Davidson:
Hello, Karen. Thank you very much for inviting to participate in this forum on the future of scholarly publishing. I should say even before we begin that my intention is not to be prescriptive about solutions. The ones I suggest in my article are just that: suggestions. What I do want to emphasize is that we need a cultural change, where those of us in book-publishing fields who have the most to lose from a crisis in scholarly publishing need to use all of our abilities (individual and collective) to make sure we take charge of the crisis and find solutions (individual and collective). As long as presses have to meet a bottom-line and as long as universities face economic hardships, then scholarship will be the loser. And so will we.
Question from Mary Ellen Lepionka, publisher:
To what extent should authors be required to subsidize university presses? Isn't peer review the only difference between subsidy publishing and vanity publishing?
Cathy Davidson:
Actually, "peer review" is the key difference, so far as I am concerned, between scholarly publishing and virtually all other forms of publishing, including commercial/trade publishing. Peer review is time consuming, depends on complex networks of scholars, on confidentiality and a commitment to excellence. It's tough work reviewing one's peers. It's tough receiving criticism from one's peers. University presses are the "honest brokers" in that delicate and often exacting transaction.
Should authors be required to subsidize university presses? Certainly not in an ideal world. However, we exist in a world in which the only other choice may be not having any publishing outlets left for serious scholarship. We're already at a place where many university presses will no longer even look at first books or literary criticism or other books that can't be counted on to sell well.
Question from Not-yet-tenured Asst. Professor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville:
This is an excellent topic. It is one thing to discuss academic presses publishing books that are almost exclusively text-based. Getting a book published by a peer-reviewed academic press on art and architectural topics is quite another matter. During the past two decades, the cost of publishing images has increased to a point that substantially diminishes the distinction between "vanity" and "academic" publishing. Forced by their home institutions to be self-supporting, many traditional and important academic presses often require an author to secure $10,000 or more (in grants or the author's own money) upfront before a standard 2,000 unit run. All of this raises the question, is there really an academic press left in this country to stabilize, at least where art and architecture is concerned? Moreover, what is the role of the home institution in supporting academic publishing -- the very thing it requires of its faculty to gain tenure?
Cathy Davidson:
I agree that the escalating costs of publishing color plates have meant that those in visual arts and those wishing color reproductions have, for some time now, been forced to obtain grants or other forms of subsidy to publish their work. Since such grant applications also require peer review, rather than this being vanity publishing, one might say the requirements are even more stringent than in some other fields. There most certainly is an "academic press left in this country to stabilize," but what you point out underscores my central thesis: W used to lament the "publish or perish" syndrome of the modern academy. Now, however, we have to worry about publishing itself perishing.
I hope we might all work together collectively to prevent that from happening. It is my conviction that it will require all of us, as a profession, and well beyond the humanities, to realize what stands to be lost.
Question from Jim, a historian in a research university:
Isn't the fundamental problem in humanities publishing the fact that many of the manuscripts written are of little interest to buyers, either academic or non-academic? They are sometimes too jargon-laden, sometimes too narrow, sometimes part of a 'trend' that will be forgotten quickly, sometimes all of the above. In some fields, English, e.g., there is little disciplinary coherence and thus no necessity for individuals to buy books so that they can participate in a common pursuit. For all its shortcomings, the historical model fostered work that individuals actually purchased. The core problem is that people are writing uninteresting books. All one need do is look at the prices of books in a university press catalogue. In some fields academic books still command audiences and are priced to sell to individuals. The question is--what is happening in those fields that creates the circumstances in which scholars will buy their fellow scholars' work?
Cathy Davidson:
Sorry, I could not disagree more! And I disagree with several assumptions in this question, including the causal linking of apples and oranges. Where to begin?
(1) During the 90s, when literary theory was its most technical in language, many theory books sold like hot cakes! Even today, some of the bestsellers at university presses are the ones that many (not I, by the way) would call "jargon-laden" and "narrow." One could even make the opposite argument that the slowing down of interest and excitement in poststructuralist and other forms of theory is one of the reasons for lower book sales.
(2) I also disagree that what you term jargon-laden books and highly specialized books are a recent phenomenon. My very first MLA meeting, as an undergraduate, I was shocked to find a panel called "The Button in Literature." Fearing I'd be consigned to a career of button-searching, I attended the panel and heard a lot about mimesis and objective correlatives in the button world.
My point: The numbers don't support the idea that books aren't selling because the books aren't "good." In the past, as in the present, some books were good, some not; some sold well, some not. The problem I am pointing to is systemic and pertinent to all that long list of problems that I write about in my essay and that have been well documented by others.
(3) When you write "in some fields academic books still command audiences and are priced to sell to individuals" you put together two different issues: audience and price. Take a field such as classics, renowned as a field where people read (and purchase) one another's books. It's also a field in which the prices of individual books are very high.
(4) However, I do agree with you that some fields are more likely than other to be "book buying" fields. Anthropology is one of those--unlike a number of other social sciences where bookbuying, I'm told, can be even lower than in the humanities fields. Anthropologists and historians are exemplary in teaching their students exemplary books in the field. Not all anthropology and history books sell well--but many are, indeed, taught in the classroom. Literature professors need to learn from this. We tend to rely on the course pak. One small thing I am advocating that could make a difference is for literature professors to get rid of course paks and teach one or two scholarly books in each course. It would be a greater good for everyone to read a whole book, to see how an argument is carefully developed and supported by argumentation, and how one allows a thesis to develop from specifics and so forth. You and I have no argument at all about that.
Finally, as I say in my essay, at the risk of sounding jejune, I find this to be one of the most interesting and vital times in scholarship in my career. I appreciate the melding of the theoretical and historical, the turn to the genuinely interdisciplinary, the opening up of history to cultural studies and mass culture, and the very lively writing I am finding in so many first books, in particular. I believe that scholarship is very much worth preserving. That's why I wrote my essay.
Question from David Blakesley, Purdue University:
You offer a dazzling array of cogent points and useful recommendations for addressing solutions for scholarly publishing. I want to suggest, though, that you haven't mentioned one way to address the problem, a solution already being enacted with modest success and even greater promise. Oddly enough (perhaps because of the hegemony of the publishing bureaucracy, hardly anyone in academia responsible for articulating the problem and proposing solutions even realizes it.
New digital printing technologies enable scholars to publish books ourselves without overhead costs. What would happen if we simply performed an end run?
I'm trying that. With the help of a talented group of scholars, we have created Parlor Press (www.parlorpress.com) with the explicit aims of publishing high-quality books after rigorous scholarly review. We do not publish our own books. In just one year, we have published three new books, with six more coming this fall, and another 30 or so under contract. There are other such efforts underway or about to be launched, so we expect that we "renegades" will likely pool our limited resources and do bigger things. There are no subsidies, no explicit ties to the university, no profit. There is the promise that the future will be very bright, if not economically, at least intellectually.
What do you think about that as a new model?
Cathy Davidson:
"Publish it electronically" is offered as a second partial solution in my essay. I am very optimistic about the many advantages that electronic publishing offer and, indeed, have worked with the directors of four other humanities institutes and two national supercomputers to create a consortium called HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory: pronounced "haystack") to address a range of digital and other issues. I'm not a Luddite.
Is electronic publishing at present a substitute for university press publication of scholarly books and journals? No. The American Association of University Presses is taking a strong leadership role in exploring innovative ways to adapt electronic publishing to the needs of scholars and their readers. Projects such as the University of Virginia Press Electronic Imprint Project are teaching us much about multiple business models for electronic publishing. There are some things for which electronic publishing is brilliant -- especially creating complex, searchable, browsable data bases.
However, at present (and this is changing faster than I can type), there are many limitations to electronic publishing serving all the functions that a university press now serves. One problem, for example, is distribution. Several on-line book publishing ventures, for example, remind potential authors and readers that their books will never be in bookstores. Another is that downloading books from the Web transfers the cost of paper and technology upkeep to the user. Another drawback is readability on line. A recent study of e-book usage by the CSU Electronic Access to Information Resources Committee (March, 2002) determined that the individual user working through his/her library to reach netLibrary's e-books stayed on line 15 minutes per netLibrary session, and 11 minutes with an individual book. That's fine--but not quite what the average scholar has in mind when s/he spends five or six years writing a book. There are other issues as well. It's important for those creating electronic media to be working with those in conventional publishing to figure out what's next. I'm not a naysayer by any means, but I'm not sure e-books will ever (or should ever) replace all books appearing in paper. After all, it's these computer-age kids who are lining up at bookstores to read every new volume of Harry Potter as they come hot off the press. Good luck with your own publishing venture!
I've been to your website and it looks intriguing.
Question from Richard Altschuler, academic publisher, Gordian Knot Books and Scholarly Publishing Update:
Will print-on-demand spell the end of offset printing for serious scholarly books, whose sales often number less than 500 copies? If so, will publishers ever print more than a few books at a time prior to sales of a serious scholarly monograph or anthology? Thank you.
Cathy Davidson:
The short answer is that it's too soon to tell. Right now, digital printing has limited applications. It doesn't work when there are images, for example, or when a publisher aims at a bookstore market. In the future, that's anybody's guess.
Question from JQ Johnson, University of Oregon:
The colloquy question is framed as "scholarly publishing, the bulwark of academic research in the humanities and social sciences." Does this imply that arXiv is already the bulwark for the physical sciences?
Cathy Davidson:
As I understand it, arXiv is a preprint archive where scientists in high energy physics or bioinformatics or other highly specialized fields can post the results of their work immediately, without the lag-time of conventional, refereed scientific publication. This is a fantastic resource, and there are some equivalents in the humanities and social sciences. I would guess it works so well in quantitative biology or mathematics because those fields are so specialized that only those "in the know" can read the article to begin with. The subset of specialists probably already know who is doing the best work or can tell pretty readily what is or isn't going to fly. So as a method of conveying the best research and information arXiv is well-suited to its scholarly community. Do the same scientists who post their findings on arXiv also submit articles to Science or Nature? (I don't know the answer to that, but my guess is there is some but not complete overlap.) And because tenure in some of these fields is also heavily dependent on receiving external funding (which is heavily peer-reviewed), there are other checks-and-balances to ensure the highest professional standards built into the fiber of your profession.
In the humanities and social sciences, there are currently a number of electronic publishing venues that follow variations on the arXiv formula. However, at present, books and journals are still the way most people read and want to read the long, careful, deliberative, analytical, and interpretive work. Most people do not like reading long and subtle disquisitions--the kind of thing one underlines, highlights and annotates--on line. In fact, a study by the CSU Electronic access to Information Resources Committee (March 2002) showed that the typical user of NetLibrary's e-books only stayed on line with an individual e-book for eleven minutes! That's not the way most of us in book-publishing fields conceive of our readership. ArXiv equivalents work in some cases in the humanities and social sciences but, at present, don't in most other cases.
Question from Tom Abeles, Sagacity, Inc:
The recent controversy about the choice of publishing an article in the New England Journal of Medicine vs the new Public Library of Science seems to indicate that the problem is the conflation of the need to distribute timely, vetted, scholarly research with the need to publish for promotion/tenure. When the latter outweighs the former, the original purpose of knowledge distribution, the cost model becomes distorted by the addictive needs of The Academy and its unwillingness to change. Thoughts?
Cathy Davidson:
Are you referring to the recent scandal, exposed by the Los Angeles Times, concerning the New England Journal of Medicine's publication of drug therapy reviews by researchers tied to the pharmaceutical industry? Clearly, and as the NEJM admitted, this was a horrific break-down of ethics, of the protocols for impartial peer review. I don't know more than I've read in the media about this so am not an expert. But, clearly, you are right when you say that when publication outweighs "timely, vetted" scholarship, we all suffer.
Question from Dana D. Nelson, U of Kentucky:
What a great set of suggestions! How do we get started? I sent your article to my President, my Provost, the head of U Press of Kentucky. What next? Do we form lobbies for our professional associations?
Cathy Davidson:
Great idea! I would recommend that everyone who agrees with even some of these convictions should definitely be forwarding the article to their administrators who are responsible for the survival of university-press publishing. I'm not sure if every administrator understands how much the very fiber of our profession is being threatened. (Indeed, judging by the state of so many university presses, it is clear that many still see scholarly publishing as an "add on" and not essential to research.) I have also strongly urged that it be our professional associations that take up this challenge, because our professions are already a collective--and it is only by collective and considered action that we can stop handwringing and begin reversing the cycle. My other recommendation to everyone is to do what Willis Regier recommended in his CHE article (June 13, 2003): Buy university-press books. He claims that if every member of our profession bought 26 university-press books a year, the problem would be solved.
Question from Gloriana St. Clair, Carnegie Mellon University:
The AAU provosts recently discussed alternatives for scholarly communications and again focused on David Schulenberger's proposal(below). What would be the next steps in implementing those ideas?
“My proposal is simple: We must find a way of requiring that when a manuscript prepared by a U.S. faculty member is accepted for publication by a scholarly journal, a portion of the copyright of that manuscript be retained for inclusion in a single, publicly accessible repository, after a lag following publication in the journal. While the devil is in the details, the details are not important to the principle of my proposal. Moderate alteration of the details I will describe would still leave my proposal a viable solution to the problem we face.” http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/133/shulenburger.html
Cathy Davidson:
I admire David Schulenberger's proposal and am a strong advocate of various versions of "open source" access (especially as promoted by Creative Commons and other organizations that provide user-friendly on-line contracts that allow authors and publishers to work out a variety of satisfactory copyright arrangements). I also am interested in efforts such as SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) that, despite some limitations in their funding schemes, still serve a useful aim of attempting to help universities, libraries, and professional societies find alternatives to the commercially published journals that charge the enormous fees to which Provost Schulenberger refers. His idea of a federal law intrigues me--although, given current directions in both copyright and patent decisions in the U.S., I fear his plan might not be realistic in the present climate.
I should add that his plan would allow for the wider dissemination of scholarly research (especially in the science and technology fields dominated by expensive commercial publishers) but doesn't alter the present economics of scholarly book publishing or of university-press publishing more generally. As with all partial solutions, it needs to be part of the equation as we work collectively to think about scholarly publishing.
Question from Kate Torrey, UNC Press:
Besides sending your article to them, how can we help administrators understand that this is a deep systemic, structural crisis, and not merely a matter of good/bad fortune, good/bad editorial decisions, good/bad business decisions?
Cathy Davidson:
First, I would like to say that administrators (and I am one myself) are more and more concerned about the contradictions involved in both having their university presses meet a bottom-line in hard financial times for higher education and also having to maintain high standards for hiring and promoting faculty based on the refereed publication of their work (in excellent journals, by excellent presses). For example, the American Association of University's Provost meeting last month devoted some of its time to a panel on exactly this issue.
However, education, as we all know, takes time and repetition. How one makes a case at one's own university depends on the people involved and the funding structure of one's university press and the structure by which faculty ascend to tenure. If one is at a university where the same provost is in charge of both (as is the case at many universities), then the argument has to be, over and over, that it is hypocritical to both insist on a balanced budget at the press and insist on publications for one's tenure-track faculty. If every press (increasingly) has a form letter at the ready saying "we do not publish first books" or "we do not publish dissertations" or "we do not publish books in literature," then there is a systemic problem here whose ultimate result will be the death of published scholarship as the gold standard of an excellent faculty and those national rankings administrators value.
There is also a value to realizing that everyone is in the same boat. I've heard you, Kate, say at an AAUP meeting "we all breathe the same air." The "we" you intended was everyone in university-press publishing. I would also say your expansive "we" also includes we administrators, we scholars, we graduate students, and we undergraduates looking ahead to careers in university education. And that is why I am hoping that "we" can all work together to find a solution.
Question from Ben Johnson, East Central University:
As a librarian in a small academic library (200,000 monographs), I wonder what effect electronic aggregators are having on the financial landscape of scholarly publishing. Our students do have access to the full text of at least several hundred scholarly journals in electronic formats (beyond our print subscriptions), but that access is provided by index and database aggregators rather than by individual publishers. What impact does this situation have on subscription rates and so forth?
Cathy Davidson:
When libraries cancel journal subscriptions because of electronic aggregators, the price of journals rises. The worst outcome of this, of course, would be that presses might no longer afford to publish journals (which, in the past, have been a dependable source of revenue for publishers). Without journals, no electronic aggregators. This is a splendid example of why it is essential that we have everyone at the table -- publishers, librarians, electronic aggregators, journal editors, readers -- in order that we can reach collective, comprehensive solutions. In the short run, while we are seeking these large and complex solutions, we need to give the scholarly publishing industry a new source of capital to correct a situation that is already dire and that is already failing to serve our needs as scholars. We are the ones being shortchanged if, ten years out, there is nothing to aggregate -- electronically or otherwise.
Question from Tyler Curtain, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
Would you comment on the perception that the crisis in publishing is something that only matters for untenured or non-tenure track faculty; or that the senior professoriate is unaffected by the problems of the research/publishing cycle?
Cathy Davidson:
About four or five years ago, a chaired professor at Harvard remarked that publishers were telling her not to do another monograph on whom she was the world's leading authority but, rather, to write on postcards or some other topic with wider appeal. From the point of view of someone struggling for tenure, that may not seem as life-or-death as getting a job (and, in fact, it isn't!) but it isn't trivial. I don't think anyone came into the profession of university teaching to make money. How sad if we now have to start thinking about what book to write next in terms of what will lose the least amount of money for a university press! The current situation takes our highest ideals for this profession and turns them upside down.
Karen Winkler (Moderator):
Just a reminder. We're about halfway through our chat.
Question from Judith Ryan, Harvard:
What do people think would be a reasonable average price to pay for an academic book these days?
Cathy Davidson:
I assume you are asking about price per book for the purchaser not what subsidy should be paid to cover the cost of publishing a book.
If that's the case, I'm not sure how to answer. There's clearly a huge difference between the costs of cloth and paperback books and also between monographs (usually above $20 for a paperback) and books intended as textbooks. Prices also vary from publisher to publisher.
A recent study of university press publishing found that its books were underpriced relative to costs. But raising prices taxes libraries (also subsidized by universities) and strains faculty and students who want to buy books. That's why we have to remember we are all in this together and need to find a collective solution, not one that solves part of the problem while creating new problems elsewhere.
Question from Haun Saussy, Stanford University:
One suggestion in your essay, Cathy, that I appreciate very much is to get the data. But data are notoriously hard to find. Presses are reluctant to give out hard numbers about sales of particular titles, genres, or fields; and even when figures are issued, the way the genres and fields are defined is often debatable, though often invisible. It's not only an issue of secretiveness: often presses have simply not kept good records, or the records are obscured by changes in data systems, relationships to different distributors, etc. How can people concerned about academic publishing get reliable, specific figures so that the decisions that institutions make, and that colleagues debate, are based on decent evidence?
Cathy Davidson:
The Mellon Foundation--one of the leading lights in funding scholarly projects, in paper or electronically--is supporting a large AAUP (American Association of University Presses) study aimed at data-collection for exactly the reasons you outline. Let's hope that gives us the useful information we need to make some informed decisions. But I want other kinds of data too and that's where I challenge our economists and our business school faculty and students to model the costs of an entire university. It would be interesting to know, in real terms, factoring in such things as maintenance and operation of our physical facilities, who costs the university most. Until I have real numbers, with all the variables factored in, I am betting that humanists give more than they take to the university. Anyone wanna bet?
Question from Jean, State University of New York librarian:
Are internet hype and efforts by commercial firms to profit from publishing (online and/or in print) driving up the prices of scholarly materials? Is there a way that libraries and universities can counter these trends?
Cathy Davidson:
According to the American Association of University Presses, the average scholarly journal published by a commercial STM (science/technology/medicine) publisher costs $463; the average price of journal subscription from a professional society publisher is $178 and from an educational publisher $47. We can do the math! Yes, commercial publishers (which publish 2700 STM journals currently) are driving up the costs and driving down the number of journals to which libraries can subscribe. ARL libraries spent 210% more to purchase 5% fewer journals in 2001 than in 1986.
What can we do? A consortium of university presses is working to take over STM publishing and produce STM journals at more reasonable prices. Let's wish them success with this important venture!
Question from Stephen May, Australian Academic Press:
Can small and medium independent academic journal publishers rely on scholarly societies with journals to look seriously at alternatives to the global publishing giants who charge libraries obviously overinflated journal subscriptions? The giants rely on the societies to provide them the titles and peer review. In today's digital age, independent publishers offer a clear viable alternative, with the same online global coverage, but without expensive subscription rates.
Cathy Davidson:
I agree that independent university presses offer a general good to both scholars and the larger public by publishing the very best research produced by university faculty, with a diversity of opinions that is rapidly disappearing from the world of consolidated, merged global commercial publishing. Maybe university presses are equivalent to the cable channels talking back to the big tv networks -- and winning a lot of Emmy's.
Question from Tyler Curtain, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
To what extent are new technologies / new medias being used to address what might be called a "cultural"-institutional problem: the over-valuation of the book, the fetishization of the paper-pulp object, and the distrust of the "rigor" of on-line content?
The need for a paper-pulp book for tenure -- or a job for that matter -- seems to be only one of a host of problems symptomatic of an complex of problems/relations/assumptions that have an impact on everyone from fixed-term faculty to the senior professoriate.
Are we talking about one problem (the place of new media) because a larger problem cannot be solved? Are we treating the cough but not the cold?
Cathy Davidson:
Interesting question. Let me change hats to answer it, from my administrative hat to my scholarly hat. One of my fields is the history of technology. I've written on new printing technologies, new photographic technologies, and changes in both Taylorized and artisinal labor in the heavy manufacturing sector (specifically, the furniture industry). In all three of those areas, new technologies change some social and financial arrangements radically--and then barely touch others. In all three, new technologies are both products and producers of new economic relationships--but not of all economic relationships. There's uneven development, in other words.
I believe we are right now in the midst of such change. Because we are, we cannot know how it will all shake out in the end. New information and communications technologies are having an enormous impact on many aspects of everyday life, on globalization, on the mergers-and-acquisitions and other conglomerations of assets and resources we're seeing world-wide. What is happening in scholarly publishing has analogies in commercial publishing (and the disappearance of the independent bookstore is an aspect of this too). It has analogies in the tv, radio, movie, and music industries, too. There are only so many leisure and work hours in a day--what drops out if we spend two hours a day on email? Clearly publishing is in the midst of this vast sea-change.
And because we are, I believe we need to take extraordinary and temporary measures to stabilize publishing so that, while we are sorting out what is the best method of publishing for the future, junior scholars, scholars in literary studies, scholars in specialized fields, and all others who are feeling this are not caught in the crunch.
My recommendations are designed to inspire the whole profession to think of what needs to be done now, in the short term, so we don't have a catastrophe before we have a solution.
Question from David Allen Harvey, New College of Florida:
As a junior scholar of European history who is currently working on his second book, I appreciate your concern about the future of the scholarly monograph. But I am alarmed at the way in which your proposals, particularly the idea of a book subsidy, appear to make publication a sort of entitlement, reserved to faculty employed at research universities with university presses. While we need to do what we can to save the system, we should not eliminate the meritocratic elements that make it strong. Why should a junior scholar at a research university (who already enjoys a higher salary, more research funding, and a lower teaching load than I have) also receive special consideration from a university press? Shouldn't the best monograph win? And by the way, publication is expected for tenure at small teaching institutions as well.
Cathy Davidson:
Thank you very much for writing, Professor Harvey. What you say I imply is quite the opposite of what I am suggesting. The reason I would like our professional associations to take an aggressive role in this subsidy issue is, precisely, so that there can be multiple new revenue streams to university presses so that they are stabilized and therefore able to publish books because they are the best books available -- not because (as is increasingly the case) they will (a) sell the most; or (b) come with a subsidy from a particular university. I am trying to suggest -- and I would love readers of CHE to come up with their own suggestions -- many different kinds of ways that we can all rethink the funding structure now in existence for university presses in order that they can return to their mission of making available to the wider public the very best research, writing, and thinking produced by trained scholars. My proposal is, exactly, intended to return scholarly publishing to its mission so that anyone who writes a great scholarly book or article can find a home for that -- regardless of profit projections.
Question from Donald Spivey, Professor of History, University of Miami:
Should universities develop publishing assistance programs to aid younger scholars who are on tenure-track? If so, what should be some of the supports included?
Cathy Davidson:
The short answer is "yes." The long answer is "yes, and--".
The addendum is that the situation is dire enough right now that we may need programs to assist all scholars who produce worthy and valuable work. Younger scholars have the most to lose but no one, at any level, wants to work on a major study for a decade only to be told "Press X no longer publishes monographs because of economic exigency" or "Press Y no longer can afford to publish literary studies."
Since I work in the central administration, I cannot responsibly say "universities should aid everyone!" I know that "universities" are strapped. Everywhere. Private as well as public, large as well as small. So I am suggesting that every university think about funding structures for faculty that acknowledge that faculty in fields where publication is in books and journals need start-up funds in the way that many scientists do in order to achieve their best career potentials and support the mission of their universities. This may mean that a portion of salary is paid in start-up funds used as subsidies for books that have already made it through careful peer review. Or it may mean development officers devote themselves to raising money for publication subsidies. I've suggested several ideas and I know, as a profession, we can come up with many more.
And, again speaking administratively, none of this will work without assurances from the American Association of University Presses that there will be safeguards on that side to ensure that more revenue put into publishing won't simply expand that enterprise--a self-defeating situation.
Question from Not Tenured Yet Either at a state school:
The anecdotal evidence I hear is that presses are targeting narrower and narrower niche markets for humanities work; some don't "do" literary criticism anymore, others have practically junked their humanities lists. It's understandable that financially strapped presses want to know in advance, if they can, whether anybody's going to buy a book. But that seems clearly incompatible with our mandate as scholars to generate knowledge, because new or insightful or useful contributions to "the conversation" aren't actually making it into conversation unless presses think they know ahead of time that that knowledge will sell. What solutions can there possibly be to this fundamental difference between the aims of the market and the aims of scholarship?
Cathy Davidson:
It's not so much "targeting narrower and narrower niche markets" but trying to find a wider market, trying to find books that sell. It's not by desire. It is because university presses have to meet an elusive bottom line and, driven by this necessity, are having to select books, more and more, on the basis of potential sales. That is as demoralizing to those who work at presses as it is for those trying to publish their books. Thank you for putting your question in such a direct way because you are one of those helping to make it clear that it is incumbent on all of us to try as many different solutions as we can, to encourage our professional associations to do so as well, in order that we can return scholarly publishing to its mission: to "make available to the broader public the full range and value of research generated by university faculty." I've put ten ideas out there. I'm hoping at the end of the discussion there will be a thousand better ones for all of us to think about and then implement.
Question from Mary Case, Association of Research Libraries:
Libraries and presses have been discussing for many years how we can support our complementary roles in the scholarly communication process. Your article inspired me to propose to the AAUP a "Year of the Presses" project in which libraries would help raise the visibility of presses on campus by featuring press products in exhibits, press authors as speakers, and articles about presses in library newsletters. Do you think this could help? Would you have other suggestions? Thank you.
Cathy Davidson:
Fabulous! What a great idea! I'd love to hear more and I hope that this will become a major project, nation-wide. Thank you for such a constructive and creative idea.
One idea we've tried at Duke is to make Duke University Press AND the Duke University Library System "off site partners" for our John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute. This means that the press and the library are part of conversations about the humanities, the press offers several workshops each year in the FHI on topics ranging from "how to publish an article" to "careers in publishing," and, in general, faculty and students come to understand a university isn't just the classroom but all those places where knowledge is constructed, exchanged, shared, and made public.
Question from Christopher Armitage , UNC Chapel Hill:
What can be done for huge projects such as a needed modern edition of the Complete Works of Sir Walter Raleigh ( last published in 8 vols in 1829 , with a facsimile in 1965 )? Presses shy away , on the grounds that only a few research libraries would buy it.
Cathy Davidson:
In the best of all possible worlds, NEH funding would be equivalent to NSF funding and we would have excellent editions of all the authors in whom we are interested. In the world in which, for better or worse, we now live, I see no obvious or immediate solution. Sadly.
Question from James W. Thomasson, University of Minnesota, Crookston:
Hi, Cathy. How about a coordinated effort by academic associations and university presses, acting in consultation, to make the presses primary publishers of ongoing scholarly research, whether within disciplines or interdisciplinary? On-line association sites would provide the "teasers", but the presses would produce the developed writing. Thanks for initiating the conversation!
Cathy Davidson:
Interesting idea! I'm not sure how you would want to work out the details but it sure sounds as if this is heading in an interesting direction. I especially like the idea of acting in consultation and thinking of the greater good, how affiliations might be mutually beneficial, and so forth. Thank you for being part of this conversation.
Question from Neal Keye, College of St. Scholastica:
What does the recent high turnover of press directors (Johns Hopkins, MIT, etc.)say about the "business" model of university press publishing today? What are the social and political affiliations of this corporate model, and can it be changed in the coming years?
Cathy Davidson:
It seems as if press directors may have even a shorter life expectancy (and higher burn-out rate) than university presidents! Both are very high-stress jobs. And what adds to the press director's stress is the corporate model, to use your phrase, that requires meeting a bottom line at the same time that the university's mission demands that its press publish excellent, peer-reviewed. No one wants to be caught in a double-bind! Can it change? I hope so. What are the political and social implications? I believe scholarship and what we do as university professors is vital to society. If we lose scholarly publishing, we lose our voice.
Question from Earl Dowell, Duke University:
Cathy, why do you think university presses have been reluctant to compete with commercial publishers in the publication of scientific journals? These are often "profitable" and the income generated could be used to provide a cross subsidy for other publications of university presses. Another potential benefit would be to keep the price of scientific journals within the reach of university library budgets. So there could truly be a win/win scenario for university presses and university libraries.
Cathy Davidson:
Thanks, Earl. In the long and short run, it is absolutely a win/win situation for university presses to take on the commercial science publishers such as Elsevier. That's happening more and more. It could be a greater good for all, and maybe especially for scientists saddled with spending their hard-earned grant funds on publications. In the short run, once commercial publishers find they cannot price-gauge, I'm sure they will get out of the business. That's what it means to be commercial: you go after the money. So this won't "solve" the problem of where university presses can find new revenues. It will certainly help, however, since it will allow libraries to subscribe to more journals again, and at lower costs. As you say, it is win/win. I'm glad this is a major movement in university press publishing today and I'm proud that our own press is among those leading this initiative.
Question from Gaurav Desai, Tulane University:
I wonder what effect the constraints on publishing are having on tenure decisions at various universities and on the "reputation" scales of their faculties. Stephen Greenblatt's widely circulated letter on the issue urged departments to revisit their tenure standards in the light of these difficulties. But might this further entrench a 'caste' system in the academy where some universities remain "two books for tenure" institutions while others are asked to ease their standards? Some of my junior colleagues suggest that perhaps a better way to ease the burden might be to urge greater abstainence on the part of some senior faculty who have taken to a habit of publishing a book or two every other year. What do you think?
Cathy Davidson:
That's funny! I'm not sure that senior scholars who publish two books a year has much to do with the fate of junior scholars. In this economic environment, simply being senior by no means ensures that a publisher will take your book! On the other matter, I agree completely that Stephen Greenblatt suggestion, which Lindsay Waters at Harvard University Press also advocated in a CHE essay a few years ago, that we go to articles instead of books as the measure of tenure, doesn't solve the problem. Indeed, journals are in trouble too so that just shifts things, it doesn't solve them. It does create a caste system. And, finally, it won't work: we've been in a book-for-tenure culture at least for forty years and that cannot change overnight. That said, Stephen Greenblatt's initiative--using his podium as President of the MLA to write an urgent letter to every MLA member--was a marvelous example of how collective action can create cultural change. I may not agree with all of the solution he proposed but his formulation of the problem was right on target.
Question from Brent Kinser, UNC, Chapel Hill:
Is it possible to envision any short or long term solution to this problems without acknowledging that electronic publishing will be an essential part of our intellectual future? It seems to me that editors, libraries, and presses now all understand the need to pursue electronic publishing, and they are doing so with as much speed as developing technologies will allow. Can or will scholars help ease the pains associated with this now very proximate transition from horse to horseless buggy and maintain their standards and position within the academic community? It seems there are simple answers to these questions that involve major concessions in the academic hierarchy, especially in terms of promotion. In fact, there are easy answers to all of the questions you ask in your prompt. Isn't a major problem here not the answers to these questions but the very nature of the institutional territories being guarded? It seems that the ball is in the scholars' court.
Cathy Davidson:
The answer is yes -- and now.
Yes, electronic publishing is part of the future. I'm one of those embracing that future for some things.
No, I don't happen to believe electronic publishing is the only answer. It still costs a lot. If we factor in downloading paper, upkeep of computers (networks, servers, security issues, etc.), and so forth, it is not clear how much electronic publishing costs--but it isn't as free as users sometimes think. Universities have to factor in ALL the costs when deciding if electronic publishing is or isn't less expensive than conventional publishing.
Your other issue is about promotion. There can certainly be (and there certainly are right now) carefully refereed electronic journals. Do they save money? That's a different issue, and a debatable one. I believe I've already mentioned in this forum the excellent project at the University of Virginia where these issues are being studied in a serious way. This is a matter of both cultural change and economics.
Question from Kent Richards, Society of Biblical Literature (ACLS organization):
Why not new models of publishing to compliment, not compete with university presses? The Society of Biblical Literature is a American Association of University Presses (AAUP) and Society of Scholarly Publishing (SSP) member. For over 30 years we have developed a vital professional, publishing program. We believe that our model in fact is taking up some of the superb suggestions and needs to think "outside the box" in more effective ways.
Cathy Davidson:
I wish I knew more about this. My guess is that Biblical literature has a steady market. I'm supposing that your publications don't have to deal with the issues of varied and complex distribution systems, uncertain purchasing outcomes, and unfair non-competition practices by the commercial chain bookstores that university presses face. In any case, however, if you have a useful model that is transportable to university press publishing, you are an AAUP and ACLS member and thus can be be a superb resource for those organizations as they work toward addressing these issues. Thanks for writing.
Karen Winkler (Moderator):
I'm afraid that's all the time we have today. We still have numerous probing questions that we haven't been able to get to, and I'm sure the conversation on scholarly publishing will continue. Cathy, thank you for a provocative chat. Would you like to add anything?
Cathy Davidson:
In closing, I wish to reiterate what motivates my essay and my participation in this wonderful forum made possible by The Chronicle of Higher Education. I am not concerned about the future of university presses; I am concerned about the future of scholarship. At present, university presses are by far and away the best way to disseminate (in books, journals, and electronic media) the full range of research generated in universities. Right now every university press in America requires some form of subsidy; if it does not, then it has already altered its mission to accommodate the new economics of publishing. So long as we continue the present model--with presses having to meet a bottom line and strapped universities also having to meet a bottom line--then, inevitably, books-that-sell will find a publisher more readily than books that don’t. Where are academic excellence and quality in such a (literal) marketplace of ideas?
The future of scholarship is at issue—and the problem is structural and systemic. It is incumbent on us (as scholars and as professional associations representing scholars) to think through and implement new and flexible ways of promoting, using, and funding our scholarly presses. If we don't, the price we pay will be the perishing of scholarly publishing.
My thanks to you, Karen, for hosting this discussion and to the many readers out there for taking time out of their busy days to participate.
Copyright © 2008 by The Chronicle of Higher Education