Closing the book
The end of Duquesne University Press is regretful
The closing of the 90-year-old Duquesne University Press will be a loss for all who care about scholarly research. Most of all, it will be a loss for the university, for which the press was a mark of distinction. Duquesne should strive to burnish its academic reputation, not take illconceived steps to diminish it.
The university says it cannot continue to subsidize the press, which publishes 10 to 12 books each year. That’s a small output, but a meaningful one for scholars who struggle to get their work into print and the audiences that depend on these niche publications. Duquesne subsidizes the press to the tune of about $300,000 a year, a modest sum given the university’s need to share the city’s academic stage and intellectual spotlight with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Both have academic presses, and their academic profiles are higher than Duquesne’s.
The Association of American University Presses criticized Duquesne’s decision to close the press, noting it came “the same week as the hiring of a new men’s basketball coach with a seven-figure salary” and while the university is considering upgrades to the A.J. Palumbo Center, where the team plays. Universities, like publishers, struggle to manage resources, adapt to market forces and meet the needs of diverse constituencies. But the AAUP’s point is well taken.
Duquesne’s press has won respect for its work on religious studies and the English Renaissance, among other subjects, and it has done exactly what university presses are designed to do. As the AAUP notes on its website, “university presses do things that wouldn’t otherwise get done.” They publish research that commercial presses wouldn’t touch. Their books may be few in number and limited in readership but vastly influential in their circles. They also are building blocks for scholars who come along later.
While university presses have wrestled with declining sales and revenue, closings are rare and a handful of new presses have started in recent years, according to AAUP. It would have been better for Duquesne — and academia in general — if the university had found a way to keep the press going. It is a shame to close the book on this institution.