Re: How much advertising is there?

["B.G. Sloan" <bgsloan2@yahoo.com>]

Naive question...how did university presses get to the point 
where they are starved for capital and "have very little latitude 
to take risks." (Apologies if this has been answered in a 
previous posting...I'm just curious).

Is it a question of university presses not adapting quickly 
enough to the information explosion following World War II, or is 
it something else?

Bernie Sloan

****

Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu> wrote:

The reality is, Bernie, that university presses have very little 
latitude to take risks. Traditionally starved for capital and 
taken to task for any deficits incurred, presses just can't 
afford to take such risks.

As the Ithaka Report recently pointed out, university presses 
also suffer from this Catch-22: "When they perform well (in 
financial terms), they are 'rewarded' by having subsidies cut. 
When they run too large a deficit, they are threatened with 
closure."

This is the "rational" universe in which our presses operate!

Sandy Thatcher

>Sandy Thatcher's question brings to mind an old axiom...your
>mileage may vary.
>
>I don't think anyone is saying that relying solely on
>advertising revenues will work for every publisher or content
>provider. So, this model *might* not work for the Journal of
>Speculative Philosophy, or the Shaw Annual, or the Chaucer
>Review. But it might (or might not) work for other publishers of
>small circulation journals. We need experimentation. We need to
>have people push the envelope. We need to have curious people
>take a chance and see what happens. We won't know what is
>possible along these lines unless people take risks.
>
>Bernie Sloan
>
>****