According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor (don't put your nose in the air, read it, it's a great paper) a number of university presses (among them Northeastern) are shutting down this year because their losses are mounting during this recession.
So what occurred to me was: why don't they publish electronically? Sure, publishing on paper is sexy but it does kill trees and the books have limited press runs and exposure.
If the mission of these presses is really to bring works to light that might not be published by mainstream houses, or to publish works by students and faculty, then why not publish electronically? Their losses would surely drop immensely and perhaps they could resume paper publishing at some time in the future without having given up that tradition.
What am I missing here?
Posted by artandscience at April 4, 2004 09:08 PMProbably a panic over Digital Rights Management. They've considered it, but somebody told them they'd only sell one book and the 100,000 other copies would be picked up via Kazzaa ;)
Seriously though, I'll shake my head in wonderment with you. There are still a lot of areas in life that are crying out for Technology to be used to solve an issue...but it isn't being used. I don't know why. I ask myself the same thing everytime something similiar comes up. Even in the smallest way - like the time I was working for a "Seriously High Tech" (not my phrase) small company that was still doing their sales pitch via Powerpoint (and a poor presentation at that). I asked the technical guy why they weren't using Flash or something similar? He looked at me with a 'I've asked that already...more than once' look.
Posted by: Gary at April 4, 2004 09:39 PM