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DEBATES at academic meetings and in articles in the news media demonstrate that the "culture wars" are still under way in academe. But while those battles over the alleged politicization of scholarship continue to capture widespread attention, academics are overlooking a much more serious threat to the vitality of scholarship, one that signals a crisis for the whole system of scholarly communication.
The threat can be made plain by asking scholars, "Who buys the books you write'?" The answer in many fields is likely to be, "Only a few hundred people and libraries." And that is simply too few to allow scholarly presses to continue publishing the number of monographs they have published in the past - at least under the existing financial arrangements, which require presses to provide all the up-front publishing costs.
Let me give a quick example from a field in which the press I direct has long been active. Literary criticism has been at the center of many recent academic battles - over deconstruction, post-modernism, and the like - and last year saw the creation of the new Association for Literary Scholars and Critics, whose members say they will champion clear writing and try to bring the field back to the basics of textual criticism. But who is going to buy and read their books"
Our sales figures for works of literary criticism suggest that the answer is, fewer people than ever before. Since 1985, the Penn State Press has published 150 books of literary criticism, making it one of the leading scholarly publishers in this field. We cannot be sure exactly how many people have read those books, but we do know how many have bought them. Of the 150 titles, 65 per cent have sold fewer than 500 copies and 91 per cent have sold fewer than 800. Only 3 per cent (generally those dealing with American literature or gender issues) have sold more than 1,000 copies.
The market for books of traditional literary criticism has now shrunk to the point that it is no longer possible for a small, unendowed press like Penn State's to continue publishing such works. (The only exceptions for us will be a few series that we are contractually committed to publishing and the occasional book we can identify as having the potential to sell over 1,000 copies.) This is a sad admission for a publisher like me to make, as I have always believed it to be the primary mission of university presses to publish monographs. But, more important, it should be a signal that something is badly amiss in our system of scholarly communication, which relies on such publications to make the process of tenure and promotion work.
Data show that libraries - traditionally the market on which university presses rely the most - have reduced their purchases of monographs by 23 per cent since 1985. One reason is that an ever-increasing share of library budgets has been allocated to adding, or just sustaining, subscriptions to journals. This is especially so in the sciences, where 30,000 new journals were created in the 1980's and prices have escalated much faster than the rate of inflation. And there also is some evidence that scholars themselves no longer purchase as many books as they once did.
A few years ago we surveyed a random sample of our own authors in the field of literary criticism. Of the 43 who responded, 63 per cent said they spent $400 or less a year on books of literary criticism. A number of them admitted that they increasingly relied on libraries for books available only in hardback editions. They said they preferred to buy paperbacks and bought hardbacks only when they were offered at substantial discounts. But even when books are issued in paperback, our evidence shows that they still don't sell: Since 1985, 74 per cent of our paperback titles in literary criticism have sold fewer than 500 copies.
Does this mean that literary scholars are instead buying and reading journals mote'? It appears not, because a recent survey conducted by the Modern Language Association revealed that many scholars do not read the journals to which they submit ,their own manuscripts. And the several journals that our press publishes in the field of literary criticism have had no recent increases in subscriptions.
It is particularly discouraging that. according to the survey of our authors, the deciding factor when they do buy a book is the "reputation of the author." This suggests that the careers of younger scholars publishing their first books are especially at risk. If faculty members are required to publish books to gain tenure, how will they manage to do so if presses can no longer afford to issue books by unknown authors that are likely to sell only a few hundred copies'?
THE PROBLEM is most acute in some fields of the humanities, especially literary criticism but also music and history (except for U. S. history). Yet it affects many areas of the social sciences as well, particularly studies of developing countries, in Africa and elsewhere. Progressively over the past decade, with library budgets shrinking and individuals buying fewer books, sales of scholarly monographs have eroded so much that presses must now begin thinking about alternatives to reliance on book sales.
American university presses might buy some time if they were willing to follow the example of European publishers and raise book prices to cover the full cost of small print runs - to, say, $150 for a 250-page book with a print run of 400 copies. (Many publishing costs - such as acquiring manuscripts and copy editing, designing, typesetting, and marketing books - are fixed, in that they don't vary with the size of the print run.) But the high-price strategy would work only until librarians rebelled as they finally did at the exorbitant prices of European scientific journals - and cut their purchases. And raising prices so high would put most books well out of the reach of the people who still like to buy their own copies.
What else could be done to keep scholarly-monograph publishing going'? I see several possibilities, some requiring only incremental changes, others more-sweeping ones. First, more universities than now do so could subsidize some of the cost of publishing the books of their faculty members in fields where markets have eroded. But such subsidies would have to grow larger if the markets grew smaller.
Second, both our own and foreign governments could do more to help university presses. The Spanish Ministry of Culture, for example, runs a model subsidy program, which has enabled presses to publish works on that country's history and culture, even when sales are expected to be low. One of our series, Penn State Studies in Romance Literature's, has benefited greatly from this program's support. Other foreign governments might be encouraged to emulate this model. If the National Endowment for the Humanities survives the threats of extinction or of draconian cuts now facing it, its officials might be wise to re-examine its criteria for book subsidies, which now stress appeal to a broad public. The N.E.H. should return to the days when there was a real connection between financial need and the size of grants given (the amount is now $7,000 per title, no matter what actual costs are involved), and other agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, with an interest in the social sciences could establish book-subsidy programs of their own.
Finally, and most radical, universities could consider a joint scheme to cover all the up-front costs of publishing in fields with low sales. University presses could then opt to deliver monographs electronically over the Internet, without worrying about recovering costs through sales of copyrighted material. Scholars then could decide in what form they wanted to use the works - and pay any extra costs themselves, if, for example, they chose to download and print out a "book" through, say, the Xerox Docutech machines now located on many university campuses. (This is known as "distributed" publishing, with the consumer determining the form in which to use the work.)
A FIRST STEP in this direction is being taken by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (an academic consortium consisting of the "Big Ten" universities plus the University of Chicago). It is preparing, with the cooperation of the universities' presses and libraries, to experiment with electronically distributed publishing in selected fields of the humanities, over its network, CIC-net.
Of course, this electronic alternative would require that some university resources be shifted away from libraries (which would no longer need to "buy" the works and would merely provide access to them) and toward presses. Its success would also depend upon participation by universities that do not have presses of their own, but whose faculty members now benefit from presses on other campuses. Simple equity demands that the cost of maintaining an electronic system be distributed among the universities that rely on it. Those not now contributing their fair share could be persuaded to do so by denying their faculty members access to the system for publication of their manuscripts.
If such alternatives are not pursued, it is likely that more scholarly-monograph publishing will migrate from university presses to professional associations and that monographs will be produced electronically there. The Latin American Studies Association, for example, is getting ready to start the On-Line Working Papers Series, to help disseminate papers prepared for its national conferences. It would be an easy step for the association to add monographs, if university presses found the market too small to continue publishing books in the field.
However, too great a monopoly by associations over what gets published could make it even more difficult for younger scholars to mount challenges to the established wisdom in their fields. University presses, whose editors often champion innovative scholarship, have helped insure continued infusions of new ideas into traditional disciplines.
This last scenario would take university presses out of what historically has been one of their most important roles: publishing scholarly monographs. But, in adapting to the exigencies of the marketplace, presses already have begun transforming their functions, increasingly publishing paperbacks for classroom use, books of regional interest, and works intended for non-scholarly audiences, including poetry and fiction. The value of these services should not be underestimated, especially in an era when many outsiders are asking what public benefit universities provide. Moreover, university presses, by virtue of their special ability to make the products of academic research as accessible as possible and to market them widely, may come to play an ever-more-important part in helping universities reach beyond their walls and maintain the public support that is vital to their existence.
WHATEVER ROLE university presses ultimately play in a changed ,system of scholarly communication, it is imperative that top university administrators pay more attention to the breakdown of the markets that have traditionally supported the system. They must find ways to coordinate the many forward-looking, but often disconnected, efforts that are being made throughout universities to devise workable substitutes. It is the entire system for distributing scholarship, not just one corner of it, that requires overhaul.
A dozen years ago, when it became apparent that intercollegiate athletics were out of control and needed overhauling, university presidents established a commission within the National Collegiate Athletic Association so that they could become directly involved in bringing about change - which they did with some considerable success. Isn't it time that presidents turned their attention to our system of scholarly communication and determined what changes are needed for it to survive and fulfill its function - surely a more important function for the primary mission of universities than their athletic programs?
Sanford G. Thatcher is director of the Pennsylvania State University Press.