Among university presses in the United States, Yale University Press operates very like the model adopted by CUP and OUP. YUP, founded in 1908, is a department of the university and enjoys tax exemption. It is self-financing and expected to run without financial assistance from the university. YUP sales for 1998-99 are projected at $23 million. Unlike Cambridge and Oxford, YUP returns all of its surpluses to the press for investment in future projects.
YUP, unlike any other US university press, has a London subsidiary which also enjoys charitable status and has its own editorial staff. The press has a strong reputation in such fields as current affairs, art, religion, history, social science and reference.
By contrast, Columbia University Press, founded in 1893, is a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation that is separate from the university, although it bears the university's name and is closely associated with it. For 1997-98 net profits for the press were $10 million. It specialises in history, literature and science.
Princeton University Press is also organisationally independent, although the university has a large say in its running by having ten of its academics on the press's 15-strong board. Founded in 1905, it is a non-profit organisation and does not make a surplus in most years. PUP's annual sales are more than $16 million. It specialises in history, classics, science education and art history.
Click for Mammon's Imprint and OUP fights corner. The Spring 2000 issue of The Author revealed that in the previous two years CUP had "returned" £700,000 to the University. Subsequently, CUP's turnover hit £100m. Also click for OUP's US tax scandal or Waldock Report, OU's own 1970, pre-tax-exempt investigation of OUP and other (especially U.S.) university presses.
Click for the next item in Oxford's 1999 poetry fiasco.