Inside Higher Ed published a letter this morning penned by university press directors Alex Holzman (Temple University Press), Douglas Armato (University of Minnesota Press), and MaryKatherine Callaway (LSU Press).
University presses are one of the few centers of expertise regarding scholarly communication to be found on any campus, and their knowledge is broader than any other entity. Librarians are acutely aware of some dissemination issues, like price, but not so much about cost and business models. Academic computing center staff know the technical aspects of the web and are hands-down the experts on hardware. But in the broadest context of scholarly communication it is presses, charged with recovering on average 80 percent of their operating costs, that have the greatest expertise in all aspects of the big picture.