IU Press Q & A

“We define our mission as follows: to inform and inspire scholars, students, and other thoughtful general readers by disseminating ideas and knowledge of global significance, regional importance and lasting value.”

How does a university press fulfill its mission?

“I feel the IU Press can fulfill its original mission by locating and working with the best scholars from around the world and making the results of their research public and widely available. I feel strongly that university presses should remain true to their academic purposes and not get distracted by other types of publishing. At the same time, even though profit is not a motive, a university press should be run in a business-like and efficient manner so as not to waste valuable resources. We strive to be a credit to our parent institution, IU, and to promote the academic ideals and programs that the university has established. We generate an enormous amount of good will for the university both around the globe and right here in Indiana. Each book we sell, each award we win, each IU author we promote, each advertisement we place and each article written about one of our books is effective positive publicity for IU.

By the same token, universities that have presses can help the process by acknowledging the valuable role their presses play in the academic process and supporting and encouraging them in meaningful ways.”

We tend to think that a university press prints only very academic books that fit within a certain self-created identity. Is this true?

“To a large extent, this is true. Most university presses are small publishing operations. They can best function by carving out a niche in a particular area or areas. Only the largest university presses, like Oxford and Cambridge, can afford to be all things to all people. At IU Press, we have focused on areas that have also been academic strengths at IU. We have plans to expand into several new areas over the next four to five years. That’s about how long it takes to build a credible list.

Many university presses, however, also have developed reputations for non-academic publishing. There are several that publish poetry and some that publish excellent mid-list (i.e. not yet a best-selling author) books. Many, IU Press included, have become large and successful regional publishers.”

Like universities in general today, funding has become a huge issue for university presses. How serious is decreased funding to university presses and their mission?

“This is a large and complicated issue, but I will try to summarize it. University press publishing has always been a subsidized operation. After all, our universities established us to ensure an outlet for scholarly communication. We publish work that is not generally considered commercial by for-profit presses, either because it is in small academic fields, emerging fields or fields that represent minority interests. If there were a huge market for these types of books and journals, then there wouldn’t have been any need to establish the university press system.

Several decades ago, subsidies to university presses were largely indirect, coming through libraries, which bought enough copies of each title to make printing economical. There was also a fair amount of direct subvention through NEH, which gave grants to university presses for publication costs. Most university presses also receive some sort of direct subsidy from their parent institutions.

In recent years, NEH funding for publication subventions has been eliminated, and library budgets have been diverted to pay for ever more expensive commercially published journals and for technological equipment (e.g. computers). Book buying has gotten squeezed out.

University administrators seemed puzzled when their university presses started requiring more funds, but it’s really not that surprising. As I said, it’s a subsidized model; the money has to come from somewhere.

From a purely academic perspective, university press publishing is no different from the library or the English department in our need for university support. The difference is, unlike the library, we are able to generate some funds ourselves, just not all. That is where subsidies, grants and subventions come into play.

Today, around the AAUP (Association of American University Presses), the average level of parent support is 6.7 percent of net income. Most university presses also rely on private donations and grants from institutions for some of their budgets for another 7 percent. The largest university presses, particularly those in the Ivy League, have large legacy endowments on which to draw, which in some cases account for 6-7 percent of their budgets. IU Press doesn’t receive any direct support from the university. We take in about 2.5 percent from outside funders. However, we’d like to increase our level of outside donations, so we can continue to grow and carry out our mission.”

How are university presses responding to the funding problem? I’ve read that some are cutting back drastically on the kind of books they publish, while others are looking at work that might have more of a commercial impact.

“In an effort to make ends meet, many university presses have cut their lists. I think this is a shame. It’s a short-term solution. It only postpones the inevitable, and leads to a spiraling downward and inward of their businesses. It also leaves them less capable of carrying out their primary function, that of publishing worthwhile scholarship.

Other university presses have tried publishing fiction. This, too, in my opinion, is a mistake. First, it strays from the primary function of a university press. Second, it is extremely risky and costly. As one trade publishing friend of mine likes to say, “every book we publish that isn’t from a name-brand author is a two-dollar roulette chip.” Many university presses have learned this to their further detriment.

As I said earlier, I believe that university press directors have a duty to stay true to their core missions while at the same time being fiscally responsible. Beyond that, we need to work with our administrations and faculty to find a viable and equitable solution. This, after all, is not just a university press problem. It is a challenge for the entire academic community. “

Another university press issue is how technology may affect the future. For example, it has been suggested that university libraries could function as competition to their own presses by making the kind of work a university press would publish available online for the general public. Another problem is that often whole books are downloaded and copied by students. What are your thoughts?

“I have read articles proposing that libraries could serve the function of university presses. It seems to suggest that libraries and university presses are in confrontation. Although this may be one of the more radical proposals floating around, it does demonstrate that all facets of the academic community are starting to think of viable solutions to the challenge of making scholarly information available. The fact is, libraries and university presses are in the same business—that of disseminating useful information. In practice, lots of committees and partnerships are forming between university presses and libraries to address the issue. I serve on at least two task forces for the CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation), an organization composed of librarians, press directors and technology types. Here at IU, we have several experimental projects on-going with the library to deliver electronic content, and the dean of libraries sits on the IU Press Advisory Committee.

As far as copying is concerned, that has always been a problem for all publishers, not just university presses. Digitizing books and journals just facilitates the process and ultimately hurts publishers’ revenues if done without compensation. We want people to read our books and to see the information made widely available. However, there are some basic costs involved that have to be recovered. It’s not cheap, for instance, to code text so that it is searchable. That is why we are trying to work out a fair system for charging not just students but all consumers of our content.”

Another factor in today’s university press reality are the mega-bookstores and online vendors. Apparently, university presses hoped such retailers would provide a wider audience for university press-type books. Some presses are hiring more “marketing-types” in an effort to get books a higher profile in bookstores, for example. How have these retailers affected the university press market?

“The consolidation of the retail end of the publishing business has, on balance, probably hurt rather than helped university presses. The worst problem is that as the customers (vendors) got fewer and bigger, they started putting pressure on little publishers, like university presses, for more compensation (i.e. bigger discounts). The other problem is that of returns. Most people outside the industry don’t realize that publishing is unique in that retailers can return stock to the publishers for full credit. This doesn’t happen in the automobile industry, believe me. As Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com) has pointed out, this puts all the inventory risk on the publishers. The big retailers return unsold stock within three to six months. Independent bookstores used to hold stock much longer than that. That is why I don’t think the chain stores have helped put university press titles on retail bookshelves.

On the other hand, the Internet has been great for disseminating bibliographic information—especially hard to find and out of print books. So, at least if you can’t find our books in a bookstore, you can always come to our Web site:
http://iupress.indiana.edu

If IU has a recognized identity, what is it? For what are we known?

“To the world’s scholars, we are widely recognized as one of the top presses in the subjects of African studies, African American studies, Russian and Eastern European studies, continental and American philosophy, Jewish and Holocaust studies, paleontology, folklore studies, film studies, music and women’s Studies.

To the general population of Indiana, we are better known for our books on the history and natural history of the state, particularly our beautiful coffee-table books on birds, trees, art and architecture.”

How are we coping with today’s challenges?

“IU Press is fortunate to be associated with one of the most prominent research institutions in the country. We are working with our administration and faculty to find a balanced answer to the challenges of publishing scholarly material in the 21st century.

In the future, we intend to focus on our core areas to enhance our reputation in fields for which we are best known. We then hope to branch out in a few new areas, particularly those that are prominent or will be prominent at the university. We are expanding our journals publishing to diversify our revenue streams. This will take a little pressure off the books program.

We are also experimenting with electronic publishing of our content to insure that we keep current with technology and the demands of the scholarly community. We hope that this will become a revenue stream for us some day, in addition to our books and journals.

We will continue to publish interesting and important books about Indiana that will help inform the state’s citizens and draw them closer to the university.

Finally, we are developing a fundraising program to raise capital for worthy books and projects. So, don’t be surprised if you get a call or letter from us!

After all, publishing is the crucial link between what goes on in the academy and the great wide world. The ability to transmit and preserve ideas, knowledge and information from person to person and generation to generation is unique to our species. It is in society’s self-interest to insure that this system stays healthy in whatever form best fits our needs.”