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54. The Committee, as stated in the Preface, obtained information regarding a number of other University Presses both in this country and in the United States. Our object was to ascertain for purposes of comparison the constitutional relationship of each Press with its parent University, its dependence upon and responsibility to that University, and the extent to which it might have evolved from a University department engaging in publishing into a commercially successful and financially independent business so as to give it problems analogous with those of the O.U.P.
United Kingdom Universities.
55. Certain Universities in the United Kingdom have publication funds from which they finance or subsidize books by members of their faculties, and in some cases under their own imprint. But Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leicester, Liverpool, London (Athlone Press), and Manchester appear to be the only ones, apart from Oxford, which have publishing organizations that they themselves control. Of these only the Cambridge University Press is really comparable with that of Oxford: at Cambridge alone the Press ranks as a large publishing business, comprises a printing business, and stands on its own feet financially.
56. At Edinburgh, Liverpool, London (Athlone Press), and Manchester we found the following common features. All four Presses are directed by a University committee or board, consisting of from thirteen to nineteen members, some ex officio, others appointed by Senate or Council, but none officially representing their faculties; and for all four the single committee or board is responsible both for management and for the approval of the books to be published. We also noted that in Edinburgh and Manchester the committee could include a non-academic member. All four Presses are in receipt of annual grants from their parent University. Taking into account the stock valuation, their expenditure may be expected to be balanced by their sales income and their annual grant. None, however, yet shows a profit on the capital invested, and none of these Universities has therefore had to face the problems of controlling a large, international, profit-making business.
57. Cambridge.
At Cambridge, the University controls its Press through a statutory committee, the Syndics of the Press, which is responsible for general policy, finance, and management and for the approval of books to be published. It comprises two ex officio members, the Vice-Chancellor and the Treasurer of the University, and fourteen members appointed by the Regent House on the nomination of the Council and serving for terms of seven years. By tradition the Vice-Chancellor appoints a deputy to act for him as chairman, and continuity is normally secured through the appointment of the same deputy by successive Vice-Chancellors. The fourteen elected members, although generally covering the main divisions of learning, are not directly representative of their faculties; reappointment for a second term of seven years is not unusual. The Syndics meet five times in each of the Michaelmas and Easter Terms, six times in the Lent Term, and twice in the Long Vacation.
58. There are three sub-committees of the Syndics, covering the sciences, the humanities, and school books, which meet once a term and at which projects for new books receive preliminary discussion.
59. There is also a Subsyndicate (primarily to consider and advise on financial and business matters, but with some delegated executive powers) consisting of the Chairman and four other Syndics serving for terms of four years, with the power to co-opt one additional member for one year. In addition, the Treasurer of the University is ex officio a member of the Subsyndicate. This meets five times in each term, and otherwise as required.
60. The capital of the Press, including its freehold properties (the Pitt Building and the Printing House in Cambridge and Bentley House in London), has been derived principally from its own profits, but also in part from external borrowing. Its profits, like those of the Oxford Press, are liable to tax. The accounts of the Press are kept separate from those of the University and are not made public. The audited accounts are presented each year to the Financial Board of the University after examination at a statutory meeting between three members of the Press Syndicate and three members of the Financial Board. The Press receives no subsidy from the University except occasional grants for the publication of certain prize essays. It has in the past made small annual payments to the University, but this practice was suspended when the Syndics had to find the finance for the new Printing House; and it has also on particular occasions made substantial grants for University purposes, e.g. towards the building of the new University Library and for the establishment of the Pitt Professorship in American History.
61. The officers have power to decline, without reference to the Syndicate, any obviously unsuitable book, but all other proposals of new books are brought to the Syndics for their consideration and decision. Although the Press publishes series for certain faculties in the University, the generality of its authors is drawn from all parts of the world. Through the years the policy of the Syndics has been to publish original works of learning and education, textbooks from secondary school level upwards, learned journals, and Bibles and Prayer Books. (Both it and the Oxford University Press have the right under their charters to print the Authorized Version and the Book of Common Prayer, a right otherwise restricted to the Queen's Printer.) New titles published each year number 200-250.
62. The Syndics also control the printing business, which supplies about 80 per cent of the requirements of the publishing business and has an option on all work for the publishing business which does not require special plant not held at the Printing House. Correspondingly. about 75 per cent of the Printing House's capacity is used by the publishing business, the remainder being devoted to work for the University (e.g. the University Reporter and examination papers) and, when spare capacity exists, for other publishers or institutions.
63. The editorial and production processes of publishing are carried out in Cambridge; promotion, sale, and distribution in the London office and in branches in New York and Australia. In other parts of the world the Press acts through agents and representatives; and approximately 70 per cent of its sales, in value, are exported. The staff comprises some 550 people in the Printing House and 450 in the publishing offices in Cambridge, London, New York, and Australia.
64. Cambridge is one of the few University Presses with which meaningful comparisons can usefully be made for the purposes of our inquiry. But even the Cambridge Press, it must be underlined, differs substantially from the Oxford Press in the range and size of its business. Oxford has large and important publishing departments in London and New York, as well as at Oxford, and also engages in local publishing on a small scale in a number of other overseas territories. Cambridge publishing (editorial and production), on the other hand, is confined to Cambridge itself; although Cambridge has publishing offices in London, New York, and Australia, their Functions are those of sales and promotion, except that the New York office seeks to procure manuscripts to pass to Cambridge for acceptance and publication centrally. If Cambridge's scientific publishing is more fully developed than that of Oxford, the Oxford Press list is both larger and more diversified. Again, unlike Cambridge, the Oxford Press, through its London Department, is the publisher of a very considerable list of imported books (books emanating from its overseas branches and also from other Presses). Furthermore, unlike Cambridge, Oxford has its own paper mill. The general result of these differences is that, both as a publisher and as a business concern, the Oxford Press operates on a much larger scale than the Press at Cambridge.
United States Universities.
65. In the United States a University Press is regarded as an almost indispensable service department of a University. The Association of American University Presses numbered in 1967 sixty member Presses, which in the previous year had issued approximately 2,300 titles and had achieved a total sales figure of $22 million. Partly for reasons of taxation, it is generally the policy of American University Presses to deny themselves the commercial advantages of publishing textbooks, which have formed, together with the privileged books and (in the case of Oxford) the reference books, the basis of Oxford's and Cambridge's financial self-sufficiency. Indeed, it is primarily this fact which accounts for the smaller scale of the operations of United States Presses. The difference in scale, as also the lack of financial self-sufficiency of United States Presses, appears very clearly in the following extracts from a recent publication on American University Press publishing [Gene R. Hawes, To Advance Knowledge, a Handbook on American University Press Publishing. (Association of American University Presses, New York. 1967]:
Each [Oxford and Cambridge University Presses], as part of a world-wide organization, is more prolific than any American university press. Oxford New York published 478 titles in the United States in 1966, including titles of its own and ones originating elsewhere; Cambridge New York similarly issued a total of 232 titles in 1966. By comparison the largest American presses, Chicago and Harvard, introduced 141 and 133 new titles, respectively, in 1966. [The figures for the Oxford and Cambridge Presses comprise largely - in the case of C.U.P. wholly - titles originating in England. O.U.P. (N.Y.) is editorially responsible for some eighty titles per year.]Subsidies to a press from its university take many different forms. Almost always they include rent-free quarters, often with equipment, supplies, and services like maintenance and telephones, and sometimes with the salaries of certain or all staff members. Departmental, institute, or project funds at the university almost invariably go towards the costs of specific books or series. Outside sources such as foundations, research agencies, and professional associations also subsidise particular works and series. And in addition to all these, universities provide annual cash subsidies to their presses ranging commonly from $25,000 to $50,000 and extending on up to $300,000 or beyond. Few of the presses operate without such regular, direct, overall subsidies; in his survey of 1948-9 Mr. Kerr (now Director of the Yale University Press) found seven, none of them less than 15 years old. Any press operating without a large general subsidy from its university represents a special case.
66. The six University Presses - California, Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale - from which we obtained written evidence may be considered representative of the larger Presses in the United States. In the light of this information, and of further information obtained during visits to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale in April 1968, we feel justified in making the following broad generalizations regarding the position in United States Universities.
67. Most Presses are constitutionally and financially a part of their Universities. Princeton, it is true, is a separate corporation, but the University has the right to take it over.
68. In the larger Presses there are two boards of control: a board for policy and finance and an editorial board for the approval of works for publication. There may be some members common to both and the senior officer of the Press, the Director, who is either the secretary or a member of each board, also provides a link. In the event of a disagreement between the two boards it appears that the board for policy and finance would have the final word, so that acceptance of a work by the editorial board may constitute no more than permission to publish. It is not unusual for the financial board to include non-academic members, e.g. leading executives of commercial publishing firms.
69. The larger Presses generally embrace printing as well as publishing, although the Harvard Printing Office has no official connection with the University.
70. Presses may have their own endowment funds, derived perhaps from alumni of the University, and also loans from the University.
71. Short terms of office, not infrequently four years, on the boards help to build up within each University a body of 'friends' of the Press. This and the fact that 30-50 per cent of the Press's publications come from authors within the University, combined with the smaller size of the Presses in America, help towards the maintenance of good relations and understanding between Faculties and Press as members of one Family. The Committee found also that the Directors and their staffs applied much thought and freshness of mind to the promotion of informal and social contacts with members of the Faculties.
Conclusions
72. Other University Presses differ from that of Oxford in having a more restricted philosophy of University publishing. Roughly speaking and subject to important qualifications in regard to Cambridge, other University Presses limit themselves to what they commonly refer to as 'scholarly publishing'. Some interpret this rubric more broadly than others, and some on occasion stray outside it by, for example, publishing modern poetry or certain kinds of high-quality textbooks. But they do not normally enter the fields either of general publishing or of educational publishing at school level. Cambridge, like Oxford, does engage in educational textbook publishing at school level. On the other hand, although Cambridge does in some measure enter the field of general publishing, it does so to a much lesser extent than Oxford.
73. Some of the smaller Presses virtually confine themselves to publications emanating from their own Universities. The larger Presses, on the other hand, as a matter of policy, publish high-quality scholarly works of whatever origin and in this respect do not differ from Oxford.
74. Other University Presses, with the exception of Cambridge, are not financially self-sufficient. In greater or lesser degree they are subsidized either by their University or by foundations set up for their support. Cambridge and Oxford, on the other hand, are financially self-sufficient. If in earlier days it was their special Bible and Prayer Book privileges which supported their growth, in modern times it has rather been their broader approach to University publishing which has enabled them to be independent of both University and outside subvention.
75. Organization for administering University Presses in the United States differs in one significant respect From that generally adopted in United Kingdom Universities. In the United States book approval and business management are generally entrusted to separate bodies: the former to an editorial board composed of eminent academics and the latter to a management board composed of persons having financial or administrative experience. Moreover, since the University Presses do not engage in general publishing and are not, therefore, in substantial competition with commercial publishers, it is not unusual to find one or more commercial publishers sitting on the management board. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, Universities commonly appoint a single board to administer their Press, so that this board is, at least nominally, responsible both for book approval and management. In practice the differences between the two systems are not perhaps so great as may at first sight appear; for the single University board tends either to appoint a subcommittee which deals specially with the approval of books or, as in the case of Oxford and Cambridge, to appoint one which deals specially with finance and management. Indeed, as we shall show in later chapters, the tendency at Oxford has been for the Full board of Delegates to concern itself almost exclusively with book approval and to leave finance and management almost entirely to its Finance Committee. Even so, the clear separation of the body handling book approval from that responsible for finance and management marks a significant difference in the administration of University Presses in the United States.
76. A further significant point of difference in the administration of University Presses in the United States is the more rapid turnover in the composition of book-approval boards which has been mentioned above. These boards being recruited from the Faculties, the comparatively short terms of office which their members serve mean that a larger proportion of the academic staff of the University obtain some knowledge of the policies and problems of their Press. Such a system, which has this real advantage, may well be the most appropriate in the case of a Press having a restricted philosophy of University publishing. But in the case of large University Presses publishing on a wider basis, like those of Oxford and Cambridge, other considerations come into play. The University may then feel a need to co-ordinate more closely its supervision of the publishing and management policies of its Press and for that reason to have at least some measure of overlap between the bodies responsible for publishing and management decisions. In that event, the advantage of having a fairly rapid turnover in membership has to be balanced against the need to ensure the presence on the board of an adequate number of members having a thorough knowledge of the Press as a business. Here we touch upon a problem of organization which is of major importance and to which we must return again in Chapter 5.
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