University Presses: “Under Fire” or Just Under the Gun (Like the Rest of Us)?

A recent article in The Nation, titled "University Presses under Fire," sounds an alarm about the current state of and future prospects for university presses, and in so doing trots out the usual bugbears: the corporatization of the academy; a disruptively digital information environment; high-priced science journals that are siphoning library money out of book allocations and into subscription budgets.

These bugbears are real, of course. But they are also much more complicated than they might seem at first blush.