Columbia University Press announced that they will close their warehouse in Irvington, NY this summer, eliminating approximately 25 positions as a result. President and director Jim Jordan says, “Any decision involving job loss is difficult, especially when dedicated staff have served the Press professionally and well for many years. Nevertheless, this is the right direction for the Press, its clients, and authors.” Perseus Distribution will take over fulfillment of the Press’s book. The announcement notes the “restructuring is part of an overall effort to improve print economics while facilitating electronic delivery,” in part through the network of services and partners […]
University Press
Report Cites Rough Patches in Scholarly Presses' Transition to Online Access – Chronicle.com
The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the just-published 2007 report of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, calling the essay on Scholarly Press Initiatives by Donald J. Waters and Joseph S. Meisel “a page turner.” The authors “confirm what many observers have already concluded: The transition to e-books has not been as smooth and as rapid as Mellon (and many others) thought it would be. In the late 1990s, the foundation decided ‘that books would quickly follow journals into online distribution and access,’ so it put money behind two e-monograph projects, Gutenberg-e and History E-Books. The results were, to say […]
Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center Starts Lulu.com "Imprint"
The university has announced ECW Press, an academic imprint designed to experiment with “flexibility in publishing without the limitations encountered by traditional publishing.” They note in the release that “all ETC Press publications will be released under a Creative Commons license, and will also have associated websites to encourage and enable a community of collaborative authorship and discussion.” Lulu.com is their technology partner, providing print-on-demand along with downloads. The press can be found at http://etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/Release
U Michigan Drops Controversial Distribution Client
Last month the University of Michigan Press officially notified client Pluto Books that their distribution contract will be terminated at the end of the year. Pluto’s controversial book Overcoming Zionism had sparked a series of investigations and protests over Michigan’s relationship with the UK house. Pluto is the only distribution client being dropped by the press. In this case, the press is citing new guidelines that “say that the UM Press will distribute books only from publishers whose missions and processes of peer review were reasonably similar to its own,” the Ann Arbor News reports. So chairwoman of the press’s […]