Ohio State University

Solutions to Restriction in Growth of Ohio State University Press Due to Lack of Funding

Mark Frantz
English 4150
Dr. Christa Teston
10/20/17
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Table of Contents

Abstract2

Introduction..2

Investigating the Issue..2

What Now?..........................................................................................................................3

Conclusion...5

Appendix..5

References..10
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Abstract
In an interview with an acquisitions editor for the Ohio State University Press, my group
learned about a funding issue within the workplace. The tight budget limits the capabilities of the
press to expand and innovate within the field of publishing. To investigate the issue, I
interviewed the same editor for a second time via email and researched the topic further. While
investigating, I came across some university press models that could potentially benefit the Ohio
State University Press specifically. Suggestions include a stronger collaborative relationship with
the university library as well as a switch to a partial digital publishing format.
Introduction
In recent years, there has been research into innovative ways to aid struggling university
press institutions. It is common for these institutions to struggle with a tight budget because they
are non-profit organizations that depend on publishing revenue, donations, and university funds
to stay afloat. This problem restricts their ability to grow and disseminate scholorship. One
recent development in finding a possible solution is to merge the university press and library
organizations in such a way as to supplement weaknesses of one with strengths of the other and
work together to achieve similar goals. While this is a far-off goal as of right now, considering
and developing alternative models for university press is more important than ever.

Investigating the Issue

Taralee Cyphers is an acquisitions editor for the Ohio State University Press; in a
previous project, my group and I interviewed Cyphers to learn about the cultures and practices
within her workplace. During that interview, we asked about obstacles she and her colleagues
encounter. She first mentioned that a tight budget halts the growth of their organization and
keeps them at the status of a mid-sized publishing company. This forces her and her colleagues
to fill multiple positions within the department. This problem occurs despite the reputation of the
parent institution; university presses across the country suffer from this same problem.
University presses receive funding from the parent university as well as donors; however,
because they are non-profit organizations, they are expected to use the revenue from publications
to further fund the operation. The Ohio State University Press uses a partial open-access program
called Knowledge Unlatched to produce this revenue. In this program, the university press
accepts two to four scholarly books and releases them for free on their site. The open-access
publishing model allows for free access to publications because authors pay publishers to have
their work peer reviewed and available to everyone. They also partner with the OSU library to
put most of their books into the Knowledge Bankan open access repositoryfive years after
publication. In a second interview with Cyphers over email, I asked about this partial open-
access model. She told me that although open-access matches the presss goal of dissemination,
it still has its cost. A study conducted by Nancy Maron and her associates at ITHAKA S+R on
the costs of publishing monographs revealed that, 382 titles across 20 university presses from
four category types yielded a wide range of costs per title, from a low of $15,140 to a high of
$129,909 (Maron et al.). So, while authors pay for this privilege, open-access, as Cyphers says,
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is not very viable for non-profit university presses unless there is steady funding to offset the
cost.
To make up for these costs, university presses will typically be involved in outreach
programs to garner endowments; however, yearly donations are not consistent enough to provide
a sustainable publishing model. The Ohio State University Press website shows their yearly
donors, but no actual numerical value. Regardless, a quick look at the list reveals that the number
of donors has fluctuated between nine and fourteen between the years of 2007 and 2015.
However, there are only three in 2016. So, while endowments are helpful for supporting the
university press, they are by no means reliable or conducive to significant growth.
Because of limitations with endowments, the university press relies on OSU to provide a
reliable portion of their funding. Unless OSU wants to shut down the press entirely, they must
provide at least the bare minimum to maintain the operation. In other words, they must make up
for what donors and publication revenue cannot provide on a yearly basis. Ms. Cyphers told me
in our email interview that OSU provides the press with $250,000 yearly, which accounts for
about 17% of their net revenue. She also told me that this percentage is significantly less in
comparison with most other university presses. A large portion of that subsidy is dedicated to
paying for general overhead costs, too. This reliance on university funding is troubling, though.
If the university itself decides that they must cut back on programs to save money or allocate
funds to other projects that they think are more important, then the press is in jeopardy of budget
cuts, staff cuts, and project cuts.
Now, the risk of losing more funding from OSU is possible because Ohio public
university debt has been on the rise in the past ten years. The Dayton Daily News requested
figures of the total outstanding debt from these public universities and found that OSUs debt has
risen from $814,606,000 to $2,605,528,000 between the years of 2004 and 2014. Dayton Daily
reports that most of this increase is due to the construction of new buildings on campus as well as
renovations of pre-existing structures. Regardless of where this debt originates from, the fear is
that institutions/programs like the university press are in danger because OSU is trying to make
ends meet.

What Now?
There are a few options for university presses to avoid potential budget cuts and further
their goal of disseminating knowledge. One of which is to strengthen the relationship between
the library and university press to develop a strong advocacy agenda and technology
infrastructure. While the Ohio State University Press does collaborate with the library, as
Cyphers has told me, through repositories and a scattering of instances in the past where either
the library has helped us in some capacity (e.g., hosting supplemental content, consulting on an
issue) or we've supported them in some capacity (e.g., participating in the OSU Journal Editors
Group), there is still room for more extreme innovations in their relationship.
Laura Brown, Rebecca Griffiths, and Matthew Rascoff have written a qualitative review
of the state of university publishing in their essay: University Publishing in a Digital Age. In
this piece, Brown and her associates have conducted many surveys and interviews with library
directors, press directors, and other staff to evaluate struggles of university presses and libraries
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to adapt to new technologies. Through their investigation, they have found that collaborations
between the press and library can be valuable in a symbiotic way. In their appendix, they
formulate a comprehensive list of the strengths and weaknesses of both libraries and university
presses which shows how the two institutions can supplement each other. An example of this
being that librarians have limited skills and experience in marketing content to build awareness
and usage (Brown et al.). Presses, according to Brown, are typically able to better build
marketability and awareness because of their inherent need to establish networks which they use
to publish works efficiently and effectively. Brown also mentions that they
heard a number of press directors opine that libraries are receiving large sums to launch
institutional repositories and pursue other online initiatives, many of which have
unproven value, while presses fight to keep their meager subsidies and have very limited
access to investment funds for anything new (Brown et al. np)
The idea being that the projects with unproven value from the library can be improved with the
help of the university presss expertise in publishing while the library supplements their lack of
funds to further these projects.
Brown and their collegues briefly mention a few noteworthy collaborations that have
worked in the past; one of which is the formation of the Office of Digital and Scholarly
Publishing at Penn Statea joint department between the press and library. This department
produced a series called Penn State Romance Studies that is freely available in an online format
hosted by the library or purchased via print-on-demand. In this project, the library used its more
advanced/experimental technology to provide a platform for the more networked press institution
that can still profit from print sales. Brown also notes that the librarys digitization unit is
converting PSU Press backlist titles, which will enable the press to move more of its titles into
this National Academies Press model. (np). What this means is that the library is doing the
work of converting publications to a digital format so that the press can focus on allocating more
publications. This tag-team model is beneficial because it allows each team to do what they
specialize in which opens the door to higher quality work. The idea is that people will catch onto
this quality and support both institutions via outside donations, authors requesting publication, or
print purchasing. However, in an article written by Scott Jaschik titled: Abandoning an
Experiment which looks at Rice University Press all-digital model failure, Laura Brown is
reported to have said, The model of joining the library may workif there is genuine university
commitment to expanding the library role (Jaschik np). So, the biggest caveat of this model is
that it needs heavy administrative support; if the universitys interests lie elsewhere, then the
model would probably not be considered seriously. It is important to note that the closure of Rice
University Press can be attributed to factors such as size or administrative interest, and that the
model itself could still be plausible for larger and more popular presses.
Another option is to go mostly digital with publications save for print-on-demand
purchases. Even though Rice University attempted this model and failed, it is still viable because
Jaschik points out in his article that there were multiple variables in the decision to shut down the
experiment. He reports that outside reviewers see the potential of this tactic, but realize that it is
not perfect. This is a model that, if cooperation with the library to digitize work is possible,
would allow presses to focus almost entirely on just the acquisition of scholarly literature and
market it to buyers/subscribers (two things the press is very good at). Additionally, as Jaschik
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reports, university presses would generate more revenue from a digital model because they
would not have to worry about shipping costs. Print-on-demand would also be beneficial in a
similar way because presses would not need to file a large shipping order and leave potential
revenue collecting dustperhaps never being sold, even. Saving money like this could help the
university press grow while managing their budget due to the control over production process.

Conclusion
University presses across the country suffer from a tight budget, like many other
institutions. While the Ohio State University Press is not necessarily in the red, there are options
to improve the business model by incorporating a symbiotic relationship with the university
library and switching to a digital format. There are still unanswered questions about the potential
value of these models, but further research and investigation would give better insight. This
investigation is limited in that more time would be needed to interview multiple people within
multiple departments as well as to further investigate university budgets and methods (both for
OSU and other universities across the country). Also, a lack in knowledge on my part about
finances and business models restricts the potential evaluation needed to come to a stronger
conclusion. As it stands, the recommendations laid out in this essay are only a call to action for
further investigation. Perhaps the only way to improve university press is to rework it entirely.

Appendix
Item #1: first interview questions for Tara
1. What are the general day-to-day responsibilities of an acquisitions editor?
2. What does the selection process look like?
3. What kind of obstacles are there within the workplace?

Item #2: notes from first interview with Tara

1. Responsibilities
o Scholarly publication -> bring in projects
o Meet authors -> ~25 projects/yr
o Initiate peer review process
1. Find reviewers
2. Editorial board -> down the line
o Big conferences & meeting sign-ups
2. Writing
o Communication with authors/scholars -> email/phone (constant back-and-forth)
o Reviewing peer reviews and answering questions authors have about reviews
3. Selection process
o Seeks out authors in her fields (mainly rhetoric, also gender/sexuality studies) or
is given selections by coworkers
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o social/political studies w/in rhetoric (cyphers only)

o Is it a new enough contribution (contemporary
4. Obstacles
o Financial pressure from university -> lack of funds
1. importance/popularity
o Smaller press office problems
1. Wears lots of hats (small staff)
5. Audience-- Scholars, grad students

Item #3: second set of interview questions for Tara (via email)
1) Can you describe your workplaces open-access model? (Is it author pays? What type of
publications typically go open-access?)
2) What is your workplaces relationship to the library here at OSU? (Co-operative
programs/projects? Frequent collaborations? No contact at all? Do you butt heads or
work to the same goal?)
3) Aside from having to wear multiple hats in your workplace and limiting growth of the
operation, what other complications come from a tight budget?
4) About how much of your funding comes from the university if that information is
available/appropriate to give?

Item #4: Taras responses to second interview questions (via email)

1) While we do not have an open access model with most of our publications, we do
participate in Knowledge Unlatched, which is an open-access program that many
university presses participate in. Typically 2 to 4 of our scholarly books are accepted into
this program annually, which means the books are indeed open access from their release.
We also partner with the OSU library to put most of our books in Knowledge Bank, an
open access repository, after five years.

While open access has laudable goals--access for everyone--one can't overlook that
producing books in an open access model still has costs. In fact, a recent Ithaka S+R
study estimated a minimum cost of $15,000, while other studies have estimated costs
around $10,000. So until there is steady funding to offset those costs--either from authors,
universities, or other institutions--open access is not very viable for non-profit university
presses.

1) We have a very collaborative and congenial relationship with the library. As stated
above, we put our books into Knowledge Bank, which is run by the library, after five
years. In the past, a representative from the library has served on our editorial board. And
we've had a scattering of instances in the past where either the library has helped us in
some capacity (e.g., hosting supplemental content, consulting on an issue) or we've
supported them in some capacity (e.g., participating in the OSU Journal Editors Group).
Additionally, we have a very close relationship with University Archives, and staff there
have been very helpful to our authors in supplying content for some of our Trillium
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(regional) books. We have also worked with the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and
Museum for our comics studies books and journal.
Overall, I would say we share the goal of wide dissemination of knowledge and
scholarship, but we seek to reach those goals in different ways.

2) I'm not sure that I agree with the characterization of our workplaces as having a limited
growth in operation, as we are currently growing and expanding quite a bit. This has been
possible, in large part, due to a very positive financial position. Even so, you are right that
we need to keep to tight budget and be fiscally responsible--so where a larger publisher
with a high revenue steam might be able to "jump into" some new technology more
quickly or deeply, we typically have exercised caution in ventures like this, see how that
new technology works for other presses first and if it's truly worth the cost, etc. But I
would say that's arguably a good approach regardless of your financial position.

3) To your other question about funding: We receive $250,000 of support from the
university, which accounts for roughly 17% of net revenue. It's important to note that this
percentage is actually less than most university presses, and that we as a press also pay
for overhead, which eats up a large portion of the subsidy.

Item #5: Appendix B from University Publishing in a Digital Age

Libraries:

Strengths
Technology (people, tools and infrastructure)
Organizing information (metadata)
Information storage and preservation
Close to host institution at the center of the universitys academic and educational agenda.
Direct reporting line to provost; deeply connected to academic departments, professional
schools, campus museums, and other entities.
Have networks of subject specialists familiar with faculty research, instructional needs and
publishing trends.
Understand how to build collections, how disciplines work, and the interdisciplinary way
collections interact.
Multimedia content
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Special collections (own enormous amount of content of value to scholars; good at

digitizing this content including delicate work on rare manuscripts and other material -
and offering it for free)
Operate at granular level with usage. Understand the way users find and retrieve
information; understand the usability of information. Well funded (from university budgets
and, increasingly, from outside sources). One of largest cost centers within university.
Operating model (as a cost center) in line with way most of the university conducts business
(thus the library talks the same language as the administration)
Excel at service bring that mentality to everything they do. Have created a vigorous
national and institutional advocacy agenda to maximize the dissemination and bring down
the costs of scholarly information (e.g. open access, open source)
Good at collaborating across institutions (ILL, etc.), and have experience in building shared
technology platforms (e.g. union catalogs, bibliographic utilities, bibliographic databases)
Weaknesses
Commercial discipline - Libraries would benefit from the financial discipline that comes
from a focus on the bottom line. There is a lot of waste in libraries. Libraries, because they
have a spend-it-down focus, are a better site for innovation and risk-taking, but libraries
dont know how to sustain innovative projects.
Evaluating demand (service mentality prioritizes service functions over revenue generating
and usage-determined activities).
Creating demand (lack the marketing skills, networks, and processes to attract attention for
projects. Not market-facing).
Sustainability (librarians are accustomed to spending down a departmental budget and have
limited experience generating revenues from other channels).
Do not really understand faculty as authors (copyright protection and prioritization of
revenue generation for royalties versus maximization of exposure from open access
authors need nuanced balance between these two sometimes contradictory extremes)
Do not understand publishing process (library idea of publishing is more like digital
production. Little sense of how to acquire or incentivize authors, spend capital to make a
return on investment, etc.)
Lack editorial selection, peer-review, and manuscript development systems that confer
status/prestige on published products. Do not contribute to credentialing system for
scholarship.
Presses:
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Strengths
Commercial discipline one of the few places on campus that offer a capture mechanism
for university-created content. Understand how to monetize scholarship, risk capital for
return on investment, operate within the disciplines of a P&L, and protect sustainability of
the enterprise.
Acceptable channel for revenue generation
Understand publishing process
Know how to evaluate demand
Editorial selection and vetting (upstream at the manuscript level and downstream at the
book/journal level )
Credentialing
Conferring prestige
Editorial development/improving the quality of content
Relationships with faculty as authors/creators of scholarly content
Marketing/awareness building across multiple audiences, but especially within the
academy. Cultivate long-established national and international networks among
wholesalers, retailers, libraries, individuals
Fair pricing finding the best balance between maximizing exposure for a work, rewarding
content creators and producers, and keeping down cost of scholarship.
Keeping works in print
Understand demand for scholarship by discipline
Understand copyright protection and rights management
Weaknesses
Not connected deeply to parent institution; lack status as essential academic department of
university; not close to administration. Operating model (commercial) not in line with how
most of university conducts business (cost center).
Lack financial resources/investment capital necessary to experiment, recruit top talent, build
new electronic infrastructure, and conduct market research.
Lack scale: too small to achieve economies, leverage investments
Far behind the curve in electronic publishing: lack technology tools, infrastructure,
people/skills, market knowledge
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Not innovative: cost of failure too high given limited resources

With exception of a few presses, have ceded the territory of scientific, technical,
engineering, and medical publishing to commercial competitors; distant from professional
schools on campus
With exception of a few presses, not good at fundraising (building endowments, attracting
substantial money for new initiatives, etc.)
Developing and promoting a long-term strategy
Creating new products with information technology
Slow to move and tradition-bound

References
Brown, Laura, et al. University Publishing in a Digital Age. Journal of Electronic Publishing,
Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 10 Oct. 2007,
quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/idx/j/jep/3336451.0010.301/--university-publishing-in-a-
digital-age?rgn=main%3Bview.
Clare, J. "University Presses in the Digital Age: How Pace University Press and Other University
Presses Can Survive and Thrive." Publishing Research Quarterly. 30.2 (2014): 195-211.
Print.
Jaschik, Scott. Abandoning an Experiment. Inside Higher Ed,
www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/08/20/rice.
Levingston, Chelsey. Debt of Ohio public universities tops $6.5B. Daytondailynews, 14 Feb.
2015, www.daytondailynews.com/news/debt-ohio-public-universities-
tops/z8K0gYeFX9rquqmdLAMzOI/.
Maron, Nancy L., et al. "The Costs of Publishing Monographs: Toward a Transparent
Methodology." Ithaka S+R. Ithaka S+R. 5 February 2016. Web. 19 October 2017.
https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.276785