Save university presses?

The Chronicle: 10/3/2003: Understanding the Economic Burden of Scholarly Publishing

The bottom line is that scholarly publishing isn't financially feasible as a business model --never was, never was intended to be, and should not be. If scholarship paid, we wouldn't need university presses.

Without a subsidy of one kind or another, scholarly publishing cannot exist. Right now, universities are responsible for finding a way to support scholarly publishing -- but most universities are in perilous financial situations, too. That is the crisis. The most basic aspect of scholarship -- the foundation of our profession -- is at risk under the current model of who pays to publish the books and articles we write.

There follow ten suggestions for fixing what doesn't work - mostly along the lines of how to extract subsidies and other support from various segments of the academic community, including students: "6. Stamp out course packs!". What's missing: a critical analysis of the value of university presses in the first place - we have just the author's statement of belief: "The mainstay of academic publishing is the university press."

I'm neither particularly pro or con university presses, but this article smacks too much of "the existence of what's important to me is threatened, so I'm trying to shore it up" rather than providing any real justification for doing so.

The author (Cathy N. Davidson) will discuss this issue online on Oct. 2, for anyone interested.

Addendum: Five minutes after I posted this, I read several other posts on the same story, all more erudite than mine, of course. (See, e.g., OLDaily.) The bonus (via OLDaily) is a reference to a new blog on academia that looks well worth reading: Invisible Adjunct.

From the margins of academe: Occasional thoughts on higher education, campus politics, the use and abuse of adjunct faculty, the academic "job market," and various other absurdities. By an invisible adjunct assistant professor of history.