Book Publishing: University Presses Adapt

University presses, those venerated producers of books (and journals), face pressures as never before. Digital access and changing acquisition patterns at libraries have disrupted the presses' traditional businesses, and they are meeting the challenges in different ways. Some are experimenting, some seeking shelter by joining with their academic libraries, and some maintaining impressive resilience. Others struggle to survive. Meanwhile, some presses retain healthy print-driven scientific books businesses, and are content to maintain them — as long as print books thrive.

The presses of the UK universities of Cambridge and Oxford, established in the sixteenth century, are respectively the world's oldest and largest university publishing houses.