PublishersLunch
University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe
apparently surprised staff with the announcement Thursday that the UM Press will close.
Started in 1958, it currently publishes about 30 titles a year, and has issued
approximately 2,000 books since its founding. Wolfe said they "take
seriously our role to be good stewards of public funds, to use those funds to
achieve our strategic priorities and re-evaluate those activities that are not
central to our core mission." The Press has been receiving a $400,000
annual subsidy. A phase out of operations will begin this July.
"Ten employees will be affected,"
the Columbia
Daily Tribune writes. Seven positions had been eliminated in 2009. Provost
Brian Foster indicates a committee is "exploring new models that could
support scholarly communication in new ways that take advantage of changing
technology," the paper adds.
Faber chief executive Stephen Page defends
the company's 80-year "legacy" as an "inheritance" that
"describes strength for publishers." He writes: "Those who seek
to convince consumers of the inevitable irrelevance of existing cultural and
entertainment companies do so precisely because these companies have power and
expertise. Not power to control distribution any more, but certainly the power
to fight for the rights of creative people, to invest in them, and to think
imaginatively about what might be made from excellent intellectual property.
This legacy offers expertise, resource and power, not weakness, and there are
some for whom this is an inconvenient truth."
Page adds, "Our legacy is to know how
to create an audience and value for our writers; and, because we've published
only what we think is really good, we have a legacy called brand, or rather an
authentic identity in the world of writing and reading." At the same time,
he acknowledges that the legacy will only endure through reinvention: "Any
existing business, no matter what old-world strength it has, will fail if it is
not bold enough to attack its own DNA where necessary."
This fall will see the launch of Penguin
Pintail, "a boutique imprint" of trade paperbacks "bringing a
highly-curated selection of the very best Penguin Canada titles" to
the US market. (You can find the catalog here.)
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