Re: Items of interest

[adam hodgkin <adam.hodgkin@gmail.com>]

The figure on OUP's profits may well be correct. OUP has been a very 
successful publisher in the last 20 years. English Language Teaching 
publishing has been a particularly strong source of steady profit.

Whether the Univeristy would benefit from selling its publisher may be 
less certain. It has received cash transfers from its publishing arm in 
excess of =A3200 million since 1999. Creating an endowment would be more a 
matter of locking in support -- not a guaranteed way of increasing it.

Adam

On 12/4/05, Joseph J. Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Two items of note:
>
> 1.  In the December 5 issue of Business Week (p. 50 of the California
> hardcopy edition), there is an article on the financial situation of
> Oxford University.  One item under consideration (hard for me to believe,
> but that is what it says) is to sell Oxford University Press:  " Another
> idea is to sell of Oxford University Press, which made $128 million in
> profits last year, to raise an endowment kitty."  Could that figure
> possibly be correct?
>
> 2.  A friend pointed me to an excellent essay by Cornell's Sarah Thomas:
>
> http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/2174
>
> Perhaps some of what is in here is old news to the librarians on this 
> list, but I found the piece to be innovative and provocative, the kind 
> of thing that makes you rethink your own mental categories even when you 
> don't entirely agree with it.  The topic is new forms of cooperation 
> among libraries in the future.  Definitely worth looking at.
>
> Joe Esposito