Mark Anderson, a professor of philosophy at Belmont University, publishes an account of Nietzsche's life and work. He remembered liking "Friedrich Nietzsche" (Overlook Press, 2005), by the late independent scholar Curtis Cate, so he started rereading that one. But then he had second thoughts. After all, "Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical…

The modern world's understanding of American university press has long been shaped by university-press books. American university-press books are good international advertisements for the universities whose logos grace their spines. The growth of transnational scholarship and the expansion of digital communications networks are converging in ways…

America's university presses are situated within a network of over one hundred universities, learned societies, and scholarly associations. According to a pamphlet put out by the American Association of University Presses, these presses "make available to the broader public the full range and value of research generated by university faculty."…

A 2007 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) survey indicates that research libraries are rapidly developing publishing services: 65 percent of 80 responding ARL member libraries currently deliver or are in processing of planning these services. Established journal titles dominate this emerging publishing sector and are the main drivers of…

Publishing research is more critical than ever to a university's mission, but too many institutions fail to recognize and support it adequately, even as their presses struggle to find their footing in a fast-changing online world. That's the message driven home by a report called "University Publishing in a Digital Age," released by "Ithaka", a…

University presses have complained for years that tenure committees unfairly expect their editors to be arbiters of what counts as tenure-worthy work. At the same time, the presses have been caught in a business-side squeeze between dwindling sales (and shrinking subsidies) and the ever-greater pressure on scholars to publish. In this article, the…

Much of the current North American academic crisis of publishing, tenure, and promotion is both the cause and the effect of this fetishization dominant in the humanities: that of the grand narrative of knowledge-production, respectably bound with a spine. Short works will get one only so far, no matter how many of them one produces, or how well.…

Several books published by university presses serve no purpose besides credentialing professors, but since the collapse of the US academic job market in the early 1970s, it is mandatory for professors to be published. However, it appears to be time, particularly for the younger academics, to abandon the genteel pose of being aloof from the sordid…

Presented herein are papers presented at a session entitled "Crises and Opportunities: The Future of Scholarly Publishing," from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Annual Meeting, May 10, 2003. Four speakers approached this topic from different standpoints: as leaders of learned societies, as senior university officials, from the…

Economic pressures in the publishing industry are causing faculty to write shorter books. The authors want their books to be readable, and publishers want to reduce costs and make the books affordable for a wider audience, including students. Brief but broad surveys, short introductory primers, quick biographies, and books with very basic themes…

Highlighting changes in the work of people within the university, this book presents nine essays that examine the effects of desktop publishing and electronic publishing on professors and students, librarians, and those who work at university presses and in publication departments. Essays in the book are: (1) "Introduction: The Promise of Desktop…

In July 1999 Clark Atlanta University (Georgia) will become the second university press operated by a historically black university; two books and three journals are currently scheduled. The discussion reviews factors such as market awareness, financial considerations, and historical roots that led to this historic event. The press is intended to…

University presses serve a prominent gatekeeping role in scholarly publishing because they, unlike commercial presses, can select books which transmit knowledge without being wholly captive to the marketplace. To analyze the cyclical flow that continually advances intellectual life, this selection procedure was examined with a study of the…

Discusses the effects of copyright law and the ownership of intellectual ideas on scholarly publishing. The effectiveness of copyright law for scholarly and academic publishing is considered, university-based networks for scholarly publishing are described, and problems with and possibilities for electronic journals are examined. (31 references)…

When the University of Arkansas' president determined that the university's press should be shut down due to financial losses, journalists, letter writers, faculty, and editors at other university presses undertook a successful campaign to save it. The debate highlights the economic difficulties of academic publishing and the role of the…