"Sad chapter for University Presses" read a headline in the Christian Science Monitor in April, lamenting the announced shutdown of Northeastern University Press, with its strong list in classical music titles, and also of the imminent demise of the struggling University of Idaho Press. Meanwhile, horror stories were rife about gimlet-eyed state accounting offices withdrawing subsidies from their presses (Massachusetts), imposing draconian cuts (Georgia) or threatening cuts (Iowa).
In fact, as so often seems to happen in the admittedly still fraught scholarly publishing world, the bad news manages not only to arrive late, but to achieve an exaggerated weight when it does. According to Peter Givler, executive director of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP), the most difficult period faced by many presses was the 18 months or so that concluded at the end of 2003. "A number of presses have made quiet staff cuts in the past year or two," he said, citing Oxford and Massachusetts, among others. But in fact, since the turn of the year, the fortunes of many presses seem to have been in a mild recovery after "a very tough time."
As to the announced closings, Givler says, "There's more smoke than fire there at present." It's true that Northeastern had been scheduled to close, with its final titles appearing this fall, but a combination of circumstances, including the indignation of some members of the university, who hadn't been told of the plans, and the possibility of folding Northeastern into the University Press of New England consortium, have kept finality at bay.
According to Richard Abel, who heads UPNE, discussions are continuing about Northeastern's future, with a real chance that there will be agreement on it joining the consortium. "If it were up to me, it would happen tomorrow," he said. Meanwhile, the press will continue to operate until at least the end of the year, which itself represents an extension. Abel expects a decision fairly soon, "and I'm hoping for a happy ending."
Idaho, whose director was dismissed in the spring, was supposed to close next month, but the university administration has worked out a distribution deal with Caxton Press, which will keep the University of Idaho Press's 85-title backlist intact (see News).
The problem, as Givler sees it, is that presses look like easy targets when university administrations are seeking economies. "Not enough people on campus really understand what they do, or their value," he explained. Often members of the faculty do not realize what peril the press may be in until it is too late. In each case, when a closing seemed imminent, the AAUP has helped rally support for the press among faculty, friends and local media.
At Georgia, for instance, things looked grim when the State Board of Regents proposed a cut of 50% in what was described as "non-instructional" elements of the state university system, which would include the Press. In this case, according to Press director Nicole Mitchell, the proposed cuts were opposed both in the state legislature and at the university itself, where the administration, she said, was "horrified" by the prospect and had been "very supportive." In the end the cut asked for in the Press's budget amounted to no more than a manageable 5%—but meanwhile the Press, which had been flourishing well enough, found all its energies focused for a time on resisting disaster.
Mitchell, like most directors of state UPs, sees the economic picture clouded by the falloff in state revenues, which causes the state budgeters to look more carefully at cost-cutting possibilities. "When that happens, everything depends on the university's attitude toward its press," she said. "We've been fortunate in that regard."
At the University of Massachusetts Press, director Bruce Wilcox was faced last year with a cut of subsidies that amounted to 20% of its annual operating budget and had to take quick action to stay afloat. This included pruning the staff, from 12 to seven (some took early retirement, others found other jobs and, says Wilcox, "everyone landed on their feet"), and speeding up a planned arrangement to switch warehousing and fulfillment functions to Johns Hopkins.
Wilcox has a vivid image of the university press's role at such times of stress. "We're the first canary in the mine to begin coughing when financial troubles loom," he says. As in Georgia, there was a widespread rallying of support at the prospect that the Press might have to close: "The Chancellor got a lot of e-mails about us," he notes. As a result of all the attention, the university agreed to a three-year plan for bridge funding, and at the end of this the Press is expected to be self-sufficient.
It seems this may happen even sooner than expected because, ironically enough, the troubled year has been succeeded by one showing a much better than usual performance. Wilcox has focused as part of his new strategy on forming alliances and publishing partnerships with strong local groups—in his case the Thoreau Society, the American Antiquarian Society and the local Audubon Society, among others—and feels that as a result of the crisis, the Press's role at the university has come to be better understood. There have also been a couple of strong-performing books that have lifted the Press's profile: a history title, Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield by Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, picked by the History Book Club and featured on C-SPAN's Book TV, factors which have now moved it into a third printing; and a book about black culture between the two world wars, Swinging the Machine by Joel Dinerstein.
At the University of Iowa Press, director Holly Carver describes a situation where a task force had been asked to identify $12 million in potential cuts for that proverbial "noninstructional" part of the university; $200,000 worth would have devolved upon the Press. In the event, when the first round of cuts was announced the Press was spared, and is thus able to go into its new financial year (which begins July 1) unimpeded—but aware, as Carver puts it, that "the other shoe could fall at any time." She, too, praises the great support the Press received from both its readers and the university community, but notes it is a viable operation and is not in debt. "This is not a good time to be a troubled unit," she notes wryly. So she is "guardedly optimistic," which she feels is the kind of attitude anyone in scholarly publishing should adopt. "We're optimistic, because that's what publishing is all about, but we can't be blindly optimistic" is how she puts it.
Doug Armato, director of the University of Minnesota Press, is the incoming president of the AAUP Board for the coming year (he will take on his new role at the AAUP convention in Vancouver toward the end of the month) and offers some thoughts on the present and likely future of the scholarly publishing community. For Minnesota, the past year has been "a pretty good one," and the reasons he cites, many of which could apply to the community as a whole, are interesting and encouraging.
"I think the recent sales trend has clearly shown a return to the hardcore scholarly book," he says, after "a year in which no one could think of anything but politics and Iraq." Now that people are getting more accustomed to that perpetual turmoil, they are beginning to return to their core interests, and "I think it's a big challenge for us all to re-connect with the scholarly market."
One of the ways in which to do that is a course Minnesota has followed: focusing sharply on backlist. Armato estimates that at present its backlist, with a concentration on scholarly titles, drives the whole list at the Press. Like most UPs, Minnesota divides its list among regional titles, which make up about 20%, trade (25%) and scholarly (55%). Sales in each division have been up in the past year, but the scholarly titles, especially backlist ones, have made it all work profitably.
Armato sees extensive transformations in the retailing of scholarly titles, many of which UPs have not yet sufficiently. caught onto. For one thing, the number of independent academic bookstores, mostly on college campuses, have continued to decline as the big chains, notably Barnes & Noble and Borders, have taken over the operations of many campus outlets. He says, "And there's no doubt that the numbers of our titles have been reduced in the superstores. You can't blame them; they don't really see academics as their market. But it means we have to look elsewhere. We have to get better retail service. for our books."
Armato is convinced that more online selling must be done, with a better focus on servicing scholars with the titles they need, perhaps in the way that Book Sense got like-minded independent stores working together. He finds that Amazon searches for titles, which used to be popular among academics, are "pretty clogged up now" by Amazon's new searchability of material from inside the books making.
As its new president, Armato wants to see the AAUP become more involved with helping publishers make better use of the digital marketplace: "We have to look at the scholarly mission, and make sure we have the tools to accomplish it better." Two ongoing UP programs, both funded by Mellon Foundation grants, are currently exploring such possibilities: Bibliovault aims to create a central and stable repository for electronic files from scholarly publishers, and about a third of the 90-odd AAUP members are now part of the effort; the ultimate aim is to make it fully searchable—which in some cases would preclude actual book publication. And an effort called Torch, under the aegis of Oxford, is dedicated to building selective databases that could be offered to all members; the first will probably be on the Civil War.
At AAUP headquarters, Brenna McLaughlin describes two ongoing initiatives that aim to keep UPs and their books in the public eye. One is Books for Understanding, an online listing of UP books on subjects of strong current interest, designed to focus the attention of both readers and retailers on the riches of UP lists in such areas. It was launched in the wake of 9/11 with titles on terrorism and Islam, and has been steadily built on ever since. Its most recent addition was of some 20 titles devoted to the time and politics of the late Ronald Reagan, posted shortly after his death. Earlier in the year, bursts of popular interest in Haiti after the ouster of President Aristide, same-sex marriage and the whole process of electoral voting prompted postings of relevant UP titles on those topics. A more recent initiative is the Year of the University Press, an attempt to make UPs better known to other elements on campus, particularly the students and the university library staffs.
It's all part of an ongoing attempt to shore up the presses by making clear to their parent universities how vital their publishing arms are in their role as a voice for the university. Peter Givler puts it this way: "In hard times, when a university needs more than ever to make the case for the importance of what it does, closing its press doesn't seem a wise choice. What will be silenced—and diminished by the silence—is the university itself."
