December 17, 2025 • 53 mins
Douglas Armato, the fifth director in the University of Minnesota Press's 100-year history, will soon retire after 27 years of leadership at the Press—following an almost-50-year career in book publishing. On the occasion of this milestone event, he unites several titans of university publishing in a tremendous conversation about change and comradeship, past progress and future speculation, and persistent through it all, an abiding passion for what is at the core of this work: books. Gathered with Armato are Lisa Bayer, director of University of Georgia Press; Greg Britton, editorial director at Johns Hopkins University Press; Jennifer Crewe, associate provost and director of Columbia University Press; and Dean Smith, director of Duke University Press; in a conversation moderated by Bill Germano, professor of English at Cooper Union.
More about Armato's acquisitions, collaborations, and retirement news: z.umn.edu/DA27.
More about the Press's 100-year history and influence: z.umn.edu/wordfactory100.
This is a University of Minnesota Press production. Thank you for listening.
Episode chapters:
- 02:30: What has scholarly publishing gained, and what has it lost, since we started in the business?
- 05:08: Side hustles to sustain the bottom line.
- 10:02: Are university presses and university libraries still close allies?
- 17:52: How is the outside world meant to understand what a university press does?
- 22:45: It's a job for hopeless romantics willing to fall in love with ideas (and not necessarily ones you even like).
- 28:40: Whither AI? How is the AI tsunami different from or similar to past massive paradigm changes for publishing, such as the Internet and e-books?
- 35:22: In a world of e-books, does a book need to go out of print? Should books go out of print?
- 41:00: What is the ideal role for scholarly publishers with regard to tenure decisions?
- 48:24: Memories and anecdotes about working with Doug Armato.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bill Germano (00:03):
Welcome. This podcast is an audio event in
honor of the retirement of DougArmato, director of the
University of Minnesota Press.I'm Bill Germano, professor of
English at Cooper Union in NewYork. My first professional life
was as editorial director atRoutledge. And before that, I'm
(00:23):
proud to say working at ColumbiaUniversity Press, I've been
invited to act as host for aconversation among a
distinguished slate ofuniversity press publishers as
they discuss some recent andenduring issues that shape
scholarly publishing today.
Before I introduce them, though,I want first to thank Maggie
(00:45):
Sattler, digital marketingmanager at the University of
Minnesota Press, for organizingour event, and, of course, Doug
Armato for providing us withthis occasion to speak with one
another. Doug, we make nopromises that we'll talk only
about the issues and not aboutyou. Now our group in
(01:06):
alphabetical order, Doug Armatois director of the University of
Minnesota Press. Beside a briefstint at basic books, Doug has
worked at five universitypresses. He's been at Minnesota
since 1998, more than half ofhis forty seven years in
publishing.
Lisa Baer is director of theUniversity of Georgia Press as
(01:30):
well as a past president of theAssociation of University
Presses. Greg Britton iseditorial director at Johns
Hopkins University Press.Jennifer Crew is associate
provost and director of ColumbiaUniversity Press. Jennifer has
been actively involved inexecutive boards at the
Association of UniversityPresses, the Modern Language
(01:52):
Association, and the Associationof American Publishers. Dean
Smith is director of DukeUniversity Press and also an
adjunct professor at GeorgeWashington University.
Lisa, Greg, Jennifer, and Dean,glad you're here. The format for
this podcast is very seriouslyimpromptu. Maggie urged us all
(02:16):
to come up with questions aboutthe world and the conditions of
scholarly publishing. So let'ssee how we might stir at the
scholarly publishing pot. I'dlike to pitch the first question
to Jennifer.
Jennifer, what has scholarlypublishing gained, and what has
it lost since we started in thebusiness?
Jennifer Crewe (02:36):
The core of it is the same. In the old days, we
used to sell many more copies ofany book. And my favorite title
from the early days of ColumbiaUniversity Press, which I quote
a lot, you've probably heard it,The Foraging Strategy of Howler
Monkeys in a A Study in MonkeyEconomics. We sold well over
(03:00):
1,000 copies of that book.
Bill Germano (03:02):
And
Jennifer Crewe (03:04):
probably nobody has exceeded the research in it.
But anyway, we would now sellprobably 100 of that. And that's
the big bad difference in termsof sales and supporting
ourselves through the books. Weused to support ourselves and
now we don't. That's the bigdifference, I would say.
Bill Germano (03:23):
Can I pitch the same ugly question to you, Lisa?
Lisa Bayer (03:26):
So I came in a little bit later than some of
the rest of you, not all of you.I don't remember a time when we
really supported ourselves. Dougsaid something about, is the
crisis in scholarly publishingstill with us? And it was a
crisis when I came in in thelate 1980s as a graduate intern.
(03:47):
So we know that the revenuestreams have certainly
diminished and diversified.
I think we've had to change theway we engage, and this might be
a positive. We have had to lookoutside. I think that university
presses and universities, to alarge extent, looked inside
(04:10):
inwardly for a long, long time.There was an exclusivity and
economic conditions have forcedus to look outside to the public
square to new audiences forbetter or worse?
Greg Britton (04:25):
So what I notice is that there are probably more
university presses now thanthere were twenty years ago.
They are more diverse than theywere twenty years ago. And yet
there is this economic pressureon all of them. And the ones
that are thriving or sustainingseem to have diversified their
(04:48):
revenue streams. It tends tofavor larger ones.
It tends to favor ones with sidehustles, like distribution
programs or digital aggregationprograms or journals programs.
But books continue to be really,I think, threatened in this
economy for those presses thatdon't have those side hustles as
(05:08):
I call them.
Bill Germano (05:09):
So you you've identified a whole bunch of
things in in those remarks. Andwhen I was at Columbia a long
time ago, the distributions werebecoming a very important part
of what the press did, theportfolio. Jean, you haven't
escaped this question. But,Jennifer, how important is what
Greg has indelibly referred toas the side hustle of
(05:30):
distribution to Columbia rightnow?
Jennifer Crewe (05:33):
Well, I would say it's not only the side
hustles, but the presses thatalso have endowments. There are
some presses that do haveendowments and that offsets any
losses they have. But for usright now, we do sales for a lot
of presses and it means we cansupport our own group and we
(05:53):
don't have to go get anothercommission rep group. But yes, I
would say the side hustles areessential, whatever they are,
because we can't make it workotherwise. You have to get
something else.
Now there are some publishersthat do regional publishing and
sometimes those books can help,but that's a little bit few and
far between, I think.
Greg Britton (06:15):
I'm now embarrassed that I said that my
colleagues who run a journalsprogram that dwarfs the books
program, our side hustle, theywould probably say our books
program is the side hustle.
Bill Germano (06:26):
Yeah. Well, I I I was going to indiscreetly
comment on that, but I thought Ican at least just once keep my
mouth shut. Dean, what's itlooking like at you on this
regard?
Dean Smith (06:39):
Sure. I I wanted to just follow-up on what Greg
said, but the books are thepersonality of the press.
They're the identity of thepress. The journals are the
mission driven aspect of what wedo. I mean, we're celebrating
our hundredth anniversary, andfor sixty years, this press was
moribund and was slated forclosure.
And it wasn't until Stanley Fishand Fredrik Jamieson and Evie
Kosovski, Sedgwick, and otherscame to this press that
(07:02):
transformed it. And thehumanities then transformed the
entire university, And theinterdisciplinary approach in a
renaissance in humanitiestransformed the whole entire
university. And yet no one wantsto tell that story, but I try to
tell that story. And, Lisa, whenyou you were talking about when
I got to Cornell, I don't thinkanyone in the administration
visited the press in years. Sotrying to do things like
(07:23):
publishing a book about theGrateful Dead show or doing
something like that to bringpeople like, We're here.
We're doing things. Or a bookabout John Cleese to sort of
play back. I was looking forthose opportunities to not be
isolated. But ancillaryrevenues, that's the first thing
I looked at when I got herebecause Poly external reviewers
said, you know, we had too manypeople, too many FTEs. And you
(07:44):
just are trying to figure outhow are you gonna maneuver more
ebook aggregations or more.
I mean, we're considering thingswe never would have. One of the
things we've gained is aknowledge of technology that we
maybe we didn't want, right? Orknowledge of project management
that maybe we didn't want. Likewithout a project manager on
some of these things, you'redone. But like we had recently
(08:04):
been asked to do ebook sales fora UK publisher.
Like just the sales andmarketing aspect of that. Now
that was something new, butservices, Bill, are definitely
something that we're looking attrying to do.
Doug Armato (08:19):
Yeah. I think just sort of adding another side of
the same issue is that the otherthing which has changed is the
customer base. I mean, when Istarted at Columbia, which was
around the same time that Billand Jennifer started, 80% of the
book sales were to libraries.
Bill Germano (08:37):
I know.
Doug Armato (08:38):
And so that was the base. I mean, that was the
market. And we considered thewhole effort to sell books to
individual readers and throughbookstores and other things. It
was almost like a hobbyist sideof the business. It wasn't like
where the money really was.
And I remember you know, lookingthrough green bar printouts of
(08:59):
sales for books, and you justsee line after line after line
of libraries and librarybooksellers. So that's changed a
lot, and it's just a lot harderto go retail.
Greg Britton (09:12):
Yep. Can you point to one thing that happened with
libraries? Was it simply theiratrophying budgets? Why did that
change?
Doug Armato (09:21):
Well, I mean, I think the universities have
changed, but also it's reallythe federal government. I mean,
you know, that we came into thebusiness sort of on the heels of
the National Defense EducationProgram in the federal
government, which supplied anenormous amount of money to
universities and caused a boomin higher ed, which I think in
(09:42):
the early days, I think those ofus who started them thought of
that as normal because that'swhen we started. But it wasn't
normal. It was a boom. It was apost Sputnik moment.
And university attendance youknow, literally doubled in ten
years. So that was the boom werode, and it it's really, you
know, been ebbing ever since.
Bill Germano (10:02):
There's a question that one of you crafted. Are
university presses anduniversity libraries still close
allies. And I think it's a it'sprovocative on on several
levels. Lisa, do you wanna jumpin on that one?
Lisa Bayer (10:16):
Yeah. I I think that was Doug's question, and that
was a really good one. Sorry.Sorry to out you, Doug, but it
was a great question when I readit. So I'm sitting in the main
library at the University ofGeorgia right now in our suite
on the 3rd Floor, and I just hada meeting with a new librarian
this morning.
They make a point of all newdepartment heads meet all other
(10:39):
new department heads in thelibraries, and that includes the
press and our literary journals.I was explaining to our new
Assistant Director of UserServices, the relationship
between libraries and universitypresses, a little bit about why
Georgia moved the press toreport to the libraries about 17
ago. And it's the fault of, Ithink it was Teresa Sullivan at
(11:02):
Michigan because she did itfirst and our provost was
friends with her and he wantedfewer direct reports, he's like,
I'm going to do that at Georgia.So there are two ways to think
about this. There's thereporting relationship, which I
think 45 or 50 universitypresses now report to their
libraries at their institutions,which is kind of wild if you
(11:25):
think about how that'sprogressed.
But then also the relationshipsbetween presses and libraries
that Doug alluded to. Fortyyears ago they bought 80% of our
books and that has absolutelychanged. And I personally love
and appreciate and have learnedso much from being part of the
(11:46):
UGA libraries. It's like beingin a learning lab all the time
when we sit down together asdepartment heads, 20 of us or
whatever every month, and theyask me questions. I ask them
questions.
I grouse when they mentioncertain things that they want.
And I'm sure they grouse when Isay things about our pricing or
(12:07):
our ebook programs. I think itcan be viewed as a very positive
thing, but I also, it'scertainly not the relationship
that it once was. Absolutelynot.
Bill Germano (12:19):
Doug, since you've been outed by Lisa in terms of
the question, do you wanna makeit more provocative, or do you
wanna try to respond to itsubstantively?
Doug Armato (12:29):
Well, I tell a story, which is what I do most
of the time. And I say that thefirst library conference I went
to, which was back when I was atthe University of Georgia Press,
it was a Charleston ConferenceOn Library Acquisitions. And I
spoke there, and the librariansaid, several of them said, Oh,
well, you're the good guys. Welike you. It's the scientific
(12:52):
publishers, it's the Elsevierswho are really making our lives
difficult, but we really likeyou.
And over time, that became to,again, feel like more of a
distant relationship, and tosome extent it's tempting to see
libraries as a proxy foruniversity budgets, and just
(13:14):
sort of see that as the emphasisof universities has changed away
from a lot of the fields that wepublish in, that basically the
libraries have followed theuniversity's priorities. I think
it's a way in which it accessthe university's management of
what we do and what faculty do,is to reduce the resources
(13:35):
available to the humanities andsocial sciences.
Jennifer Crewe (13:39):
Yeah, I just wanna jump in and say one thing.
I really do think that provostsor administrators think, okay,
books and books, so they shouldgo together. And there isn't
really much thought given to howdifferent we are. They wanna put
up stuff for free and they don'treally want the physical objects
either. And that we wanna earnrevenue and sell the stuff.
(14:02):
And I just think there are somany different things that we do
and also the systems, thereisn't really that much synergy
to be had in the systems that werun. I mean, the administrators,
they want to save money and sothey want to say, oh, you do
this and you do that, you can doit together. But actually, I
think it's more expensive forthe library to take on some of
(14:23):
the stuff that we do.
Lisa Bayer (14:25):
So I agree with Doug and Jennifer, and I remember
after I came to Georgia it wasthe first press where I had been
that had reported to a libraryand Joe Esposito wrote this
scathing Scholarly Kitchen piecesaying having a press report to
a library is like putting thepig in the butcher's shop or
(14:46):
something. I don't even rememberwhat it was, but it was awful
and I thought, oh my god, whathave I done? But I will say
everything is dependent uponculture and relationships. We
have actually benefitedtremendously from working very
closely with our metadatalibrarians and the Digital
(15:09):
Library of Georgia and SpecialCollections around open access
projects, metadata standards. Wepoached a metadata librarian
from the libraries to join thepress all and those things could
have happened if we were, youknow, in separate reporting
arrangements.
I doubt though that we wouldhave the mutual understanding
(15:31):
and respect for one another.Both and.
Doug Armato (15:34):
And you're right that there's people involved
here. There's faculty. And, youknow, faculty are also
embattled, but faculty are verycommitted to the books. And, you
know, years ago, a colleague, wewe all know, a former colleague,
Lindsay Waters of, HarvardUniversity Press, gave a talk
here at Minnesota and was justtalking about the importance of
(15:55):
books actually selling, and howthere were more books being
published than the market couldabsorb. And it was a very cold
eyed impression of things.
The first question he got wasfrom a graduate student saying,
so what I hear you saying isyou're gonna take our books away
from us. And Lindsay sort ofsuccessfully backpedaled on
that, but that's sort of wherethe rubber hits the road.
Dean Smith (16:16):
I've had relationship with the the Duke
Library since I've arrived, andand there's been no talk of us
reporting to them. Weincreasingly find ourselves in a
similar position of trying todemonstrate our value library as
well. They got hit with a major$6,500,000 cut at the beginning
of COVID. And then no more printacquisition for, like, two
(16:38):
years. And it was great becauseI go it's a very kind of back
channel relationship where I'mlike, hey, you know, my
warehouse is about to be closed.
I found out people were stillworking in the library. So I'm
like, maybe I don't need toclose the warehouse. And kept it
sort of partially open or elsewe would have been facing. So
the library has been a reallykey strategic partner for me
since I've been here, whetherit's, hey. Do you guys wanna get
(16:59):
in on this thing for this book,Duke author?
Do you wanna open this book? Doyou have you know, there's a
great relationship there.Anytime I need to know what's
going on in the provost'soffice, I reach out to Joe
Salem. He's very helpful. Butincreasingly find ourselves
trying to find out, hey.
What's gonna happen next? Whatare we we've we had to lay off
44 librarians, recently becauseof the funding cuts, and that
(17:20):
was a very difficult situation.But strategically, we share a
fundraising resource. So they'vebrought us into we've done joint
events. There's just a kind ofgreat synergy between us, and
there's no reportingrelationship.
So whenever I need something hehappens to be a Grateful Dead
fan with along with me, so we doother things as well along those
lines and sort of subversivemoments that people do can't
(17:43):
figure out. You know, that'sbeen a really good I think we
have to, like, find thosealliances in this situation, and
and I, you know, I've enjoyedthat so far. But great question.
Bill Germano (17:53):
Following up on that, I was gonna ask a question
about the work one needs to doto adjust and explain a public
face. How is the outside worldmeant to understand what a
university press does, and howhas that changed over the course
of of your career? Greg, are youfeeling brave?
Greg Britton (18:15):
Yeah. I'm I'm I'm, stalling for time, actually. I
should say great question, whichis the the great, time staller.
No. I find that I'm looking forbooks both personally and in
acquisitions that solve anidentifiable problem.
(18:35):
When I get a manuscript, when Iget a proposal, I think, what
work does this book do for us?And I'm not sure that I would
have asked that question twentyyears ago in as sharper terms.
It's really looking for thingswith a pragmatic edge. Even
works of literature solvecertain problems sometimes. So I
(18:56):
will sweep those into that aswell.
Jennifer Crewe (18:59):
I would say, I mean, for those of us who are
here in the Pleistocene era,Doug and Bill and I, question.
We didn't think about thegeneral audience. We were so
because libraries, the 80% thatDoug mentioned, they were buying
the books. And so we were thereto publish new research, to get
people tenured and promoted andto publish for the libraries and
(19:22):
the scholar community. But atsome point, and I don't know
exactly what year, but it wasthe year when a lot of the trade
publishers were realizing, oh,I'm only selling 2,000 copies of
whatever it is.
And they stopped doing highbrow, I would say, general
interest books. And we came inand swept them up. And then we
had to learn how to do thingsdifferently and reach a general
(19:45):
audience. And I think now whenwe talk around the table about
what, well, around the zoomsquares about what books we're
gonna do, we always think now isthis gonna be general interest
or scholarly? And we make surewe do at least, half of the
books can travel acrossdisciplines.
(20:06):
Whereas before we were reallyjust thinking, we'll do a book
for a particular microdiscipline. But now we need that
general audience, and we'rehappy to have it when we can get
it.
Doug Armato (20:19):
Yeah, because as we went from that 80% libraries to
say 25% libraries and the restselling to readers and
booksellers, obviously the mixhas changed, so we've gotten
much stronger on that side. Ithink that the ground for that
transition was partly laid byBill Germano. I mean, because
(20:40):
when he went to Routledge, allof a sudden books had four color
covers, and it's like, where didthis come from? I mean,
university presses were knownfor sort of dowdy one or two
color covers, if that, andRoutledge sort of was a press
that began to signal thatscholarship could be exciting
and that it should have its ownidentity. And I think that we
(21:03):
didn't know why at that point,but we we found out why as the
years went on.
Bill Germano (21:07):
Minnesota's list was so important and Duke's list
too. But I think I and Hopkins.But I think I looked at those
houses, and I tracked certaineditors, and I would say, darn
it. That editor got thatmanuscript before I could even
have an opportunity to talk toanybody about it. But there was
(21:28):
so much energy going on in theeighties, into the nineties.
You stole ideas wherever youcould, and that was part of our
job description back in the day.
Greg Britton (21:38):
I feel that energy every day, and maybe it's a
nervous energy or a competitiveenergy or an existential dread.
I don't know.
Lisa Bayer (21:48):
I think that it's difficult to feel that kind of
enthusiasm and hopefulnesssometimes. You know, if you read
Inside Higher Ed in theChronicle every day and look at
the horrible things that arehappening in terms of pressures
on scholars and scholarship, andit's not even on scholars, just
(22:11):
on smart people. It doesn't haveto limit it to that. So I still
get excited about books from ourtrade list to our scholarly list
and our creative list. But Idon't know, Greg, and maybe it's
just also because we're all of acertain age.
It's a little bit harder now, Ithink.
Greg Britton (22:30):
Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's me. I fall in love
every day. When I see a bookproposal that I think, oh my
god,
Bill Germano (22:38):
is So
Greg Britton (22:41):
anyway, it's optimism over reality, maybe.
Bill Germano (22:46):
This is a podcast that's going to be listened to
by people who are alreadyconnected to scholarly
publishing, but it is a job forhopeless romantics. You have to
be able to fall in love everyday with ideas and sometimes
tolerate the people behind theideas and sometimes you like
(23:06):
them a lot. But if you onlypublish people you like, you'll
go out of business reallyquickly. And getting excited by
ideas that you cannot possiblyunderstand as well as the author
does is an act of enthusiastichumility that you have to
sustain absolutely every day.That's the thing I most miss
about that.
(23:26):
But, honestly, it's a lot of itis like teaching. You know, I do
a lot of talking to people abouttheir works, their manuscripts.
And it's funny. We were talkingbefore about you could sell a
thousand copies when Jennifertalked about the howler monkeys.
Back then, they could have 500pages of research.
Now you have to have a question.The howler monkeys wanna know
(23:47):
what you have for them in waysthey didn't care about forty
years ago. And I think that'sthe so what? Jerry Graff and his
wife have that little book, theysay, I say. It says the two most
important questions when you'rewriting something is the first
one is, so what?
And the second question is,whoever thought otherwise? And I
(24:07):
use this in every presentationabout writing, and I watch
people cringe because they'relooking at their work trying to
think, what's the takeaway?What's at stake in what I'm
producing? Not my homework, butwhat I want people to take away
and use. If I were still in thebusiness, that's what I would be
trying to focus on.
Jennifer Crewe (24:26):
Also, would say you have to focus because now
with attention spans, we can'thave 500 pages of research. We
have to have, like, at the most,80,000 words, And whatever it so
they have to distill it down tothe, so what.
Doug Armato (24:46):
I mean, I'd also think there's a general strategy
of, as Bill described, oh, well,looking at all of the other
presses, they get things thatyou wish you'd gotten. And to
me, a lot of it boils down towhat the Baltimore Orioles
infielder Wiggly Killer said,hit them where they ain't.
You're always looking for theareas that are underserved, the
(25:06):
topics which hadn't been lookedat. I mean, just for something
that stands out. Trade houses,commercial publishing is very
risk averse, which is somethingthat Scholarly Publishing had
the reputation for for a longtime, as being sort of dusty.
But in reality, in a lot oftimes, we're out there just
trying to break into new areasand say something people haven't
(25:28):
thought before. That I think iswhere the serial love affair
that Greg refers to really comesin. It's just like a query shows
up in your email inbox and youjust say, Oh, I haven't heard
that. You know, that's reallyinteresting.
Lisa Bayer (25:43):
Can I say that what I fall in love with every day is
that we still have 15 to 20students, graduate,
undergraduate, apprenticing inthe press every year, young
people who still want to bepublishers? And that to me is
what is hopeful. I just hope weleave something for them. Forty
(26:08):
years ago, that was me and thatwas everyone on this call. And
now, and they're still comingand we're turning them away and
our donors are still fundingthem because they believe that
this is a career, this is a pathworth following for a lot of
good reasons.
Jennifer Crewe (26:24):
Just exactly that, we have an editorial
assistant opening, you know, 400applicants.
Lisa Bayer (26:28):
Yes, yes.
Jennifer Crewe (26:30):
Wow. I mean, a lot of those like at least half
say, but even two, half are justrobo, you know, but the rest are
legitimate and good.
Greg Britton (26:40):
Both Dean and I teach in the George Washington
Publishing Program. And thissemester, I have 50 students who
want to be acquiring editors andare getting a master's in in
this. It's something, one didn'tneed when we came into
publishing.
Jennifer Crewe (26:59):
I don't think there was such a thing.
Greg Britton (27:01):
There was not such a thing, and yet there is this
enthusiasm for being inpublishing in this new
generation. So Lisa, I see itall the time and it's exciting.
Dean Smith (27:11):
We have a lot of PhD students come in post grad, you
know, that and they're workingmainly in our editorial
department and a lot of thosehave stayed on. They stay on.
They go into publicity and theyit's a very unique thing.
Lisa Bayer (27:25):
Our last four full time hires have been PhDs, newly
minted PhDs with humanitiesdegrees.
Greg Britton (27:35):
You know, when I think of these students, the
young ones coming up, I think ofhow we have all been stewards of
our publishing houses and ofpublishing itself. And when I
think of what Doug has done, Icame to Hopkins, which is
happily the oldest universitypress in America. And, I opened
(27:56):
a file drawer, and I foundletters, emails from Doug
Armato. And I can tell you Dougwrites a mean email when he
wants to. And I'm keenly awarethat before Doug, there were
others, and there were othersbefore them.
And we all run these, sort oflegacy programs that some days
(28:17):
look like nineteenth centurybusinesses. We're manufacturing
things and putting them inwarehouses and then selling them
sometimes on the streets. Andother times are completely
digitally forward techcompanies. But that's all part
of that legacy. I'm aware everyday that it's like, don't break
this because there are peoplewho will come after us.
Bill Germano (28:41):
A couple of people have mentioned AI, and one of
the questions you guys came upwith is twither AI. I like that
twither. How is the AI tsunamidifferent from or similar to
past massive paradigm changesfor publishing such as the
Internet and ebooks? Actually,
Dean Smith (29:03):
this morning was talking about how it kind of
reminds me of 1995 when we putthe first journal online and I
was working with CharlesWatkins' father on the journal
Material Science Bill, that wasthe Chapman and Hall side of the
Thompson acquisition whenexecutives from Thompson
Information Services Limitedlooked at sodomy and the pirate
tradition, and it was like, whatis going on here? But, you know,
(29:27):
I guess I did experiment withsome usage stats and was asking
questions of the CHAT GPTvariation, and I came up with
some really interesting answers.But as a teacher in the program
with Greg at GW, I'm wonderingwhen the student's gonna be able
to select their avatar, selectthe course. I mean, I've checked
some of my lessons, you know,and and to see how sophisticated
(29:49):
it is, especially even aboutuniversity presses. And I was
not turned away, let's say.
I didn't use any of it, but itwas I was like, hey. This is in
the ballpark kind of thing. AndDoug, the work that you did with
Manifold, which is amazing andhelped transform Brown and and
many of us to kind of get somesolutions over to some of these
university departments. We theiNowdy Center was a a user of it
(30:12):
for a few years and then decidedthat publishing was too hard.
But but when you think about themonograph of like, here's the
monograph, here's the PDF, couldyou add links of of relevant
video, could you add citations,could you add text to those
citations, full text?
We're not that far away fromsomething like that, I don't
(30:33):
think. I don't know what thatbecomes or what that looks like
or how it gets paid for orwhether a box gets dropped off
at the library, I have no idea.But you could imagine that it
would be easier than us tryingto get all of that stuff
together. You know, that's justsort of where it stops. I'm a
little bit afraid to go anyfurther there.
We have a project coming outspeaking of regional publishing
and the history of RTP, which atthe end it's like RTP is a slow
(30:56):
adopter of AI. You know, allthose companies, the tech
companies, biotech companiesthere are supposedly slow
adopters. Well, is that a badthing or a good thing? You know,
you don't know.
Greg Britton (31:05):
As I think about the threat that monographs
especially face, I'm wonderingif the tools of AI can be
brought to bear on making thosepossible. And the alternative is
that monographs disappear. As weacquire fewer of them, we
publish fewer of them. Andthat's sort of heartbreaking to
(31:28):
me to think of. I would love toknow how to use those tools to
make it possible.
I don't know the answer to that,but that's the question that I'm
curious about. And I mean thethe tools of AI in doing all of
the routine tasks of publishingthat need a human to keep an eye
on, but that are expensive andtake up a lot of time.
(31:48):
Constructing metadata, writingalt text for images, whatever
else.
Jennifer Crewe (31:53):
You know, one thing about being in publishing,
there's some challenge orsomething new probably every two
years, maybe every year. Andthat's the part that keeps it
going and keeps us on our toesand wondering what the hell. And
this is such a moment, I think.I mean, we had that when the
Kindle came out or even when theiPhone came out. I remember
(32:16):
there have been moments when wewere wondering were books gonna
continue to exist?
You know, was it all gonna bedigital? Which didn't happen.
And I think with AI, we're in amoment like that, but it's also,
it's not just us, it's the wholeuniversity. We have to see how
everything changes as a resultof this. But I think what Greg
(32:37):
just said about getting the moremundane little tasks done that
we wouldn't have to that's agood use of it.
Lisa Bayer (32:46):
Yeah. And a lot of publishers are already doing
that, particularly in marketingand ED and P. I agree with
Jennifer. I think that thistsunami, it's going to come. It
may or may not hit us.
It might dissipate owing to whatI think is some sort of false
economic support. There's nothere there in some ways. Also
(33:07):
when I hear my 17 year old sonsay, I want to use my brain. I'm
shocked that he says thatfrankly, but I want to use my
brain mom. I don't want to useAI, but that gives me, okay, the
pendulum will swing.
It may knock a few of us off onthe way, but 85% of our sales
are still print books.
Doug Armato (33:27):
Right. I mean, what you're saying is very helpful,
but it's also that technologysometimes appears on the horizon
as a threat, but the other sideof that is culture. And culture
tends to mediate how we usetechnology and what it means to
us and how much space it takesup. We've certainly seen that
over time with ebooks. That Imean, it started out looking
(33:49):
like a threat.
I remember a universitylibrarian here at Minnesota I
worked with saying, you know,once the technology is
perfected, we really only aregoing to need one copy of each
of these, globally. So you sortof feel that sense of doom, but
then you find out, well, peopleare using ebooks differently
(34:09):
than print books. They use themfor different functions. They
have senses of affiliation orobject fetishism, which leads
them towards the books andthat's professors, but it's also
students. So the culturemoderates the technology again
and again.
So
Lisa Bayer (34:29):
what you're saying is we think of AI right now as
this opaque, oh my God threat,but it will be filtered and
shifted and changed by people,by the things my son is hearing
on TikTok or whatever in a verysmall way. Yeah, no. And
actually that's helpful too.
Doug Armato (34:48):
Yeah. And there's an element of passion and desire
and love, which is the word Gregused, you know, that runs
through all of this. That's, Ithink, what keeps it afloat
because the technology itself isnot always helpful.
Greg Britton (35:02):
It seems like one of the greatest promises of AI
in the university is that itallows for individualized
learning, learning at your ownpace. Guess what else does that?
A book. K? A book is theultimate individualized
learning.
So, I don't think we're doneyet.
Bill Germano (35:22):
I think the same the same librarian who predicted
that ultimately we only need onecopy of a book globally is
probably the person who saidthat books never need to go out
of print. And I'm just curious,following up on one of the
questions that one of you sent,does a book ever need to go out
(35:43):
of print? Should books ever goout of print?
Greg Britton (35:46):
Oh my. At Hopkins, we have a room which is our
library, which is books in puborder from the eighteen
seventies through the present.And as I shelf read in there, I
see books all the time that I amreally proud are now out of
print. Stop by. I'm happy toshow them to you.
Bill Germano (36:14):
Are there other implications work wise of
keeping books in print, quote,unquote, forever?
Lisa Bayer (36:20):
I think that right now, it's relatively simple to
digitize a backlist title. Itcosts something like $300 to get
the files and put them intovarious third party aggregators
and retailers and others. Whenthat changes, when those
economics change, then that willchange it for us. Know, right
(36:42):
now it's fairly simple if youhave the capacity. And I would
also argue that we all havebooks on our backlist that are
still in print that areobjectionable or, you know, of
their time.
Part of me thinks they should beavailable. They should be part
of the record.
Greg Britton (37:03):
That's what libraries are for.
Lisa Bayer (37:05):
Well, maybe, but what if you live really far from
a library and you want to see acopy of the Confederate Receipt
book, which was one of our bestsellers. I don't know. Doug
remembers that book.
Doug Armato (37:18):
Oh yeah. Coffee Made of Acorns. Never forget it.
Lisa Bayer (37:21):
Actually, are others that are worse, but, but I don't
know. Should we be in the, inthe position of making those
decisions?
Doug Armato (37:31):
I think that this is especially keen in an era
when aggregation tools such asAI are learning or training
themselves in a lot of cases onquestionable information,
questionable or false. And howthe algorithms work determines
what's there. But at the end ofthe day, without the context,
(37:51):
you don't really know theperspective that those facts are
issuing out of and that they'rebeing shaped by. So I think
there's always a worry abouthaving too much outdated
knowledge out there in theworld. And so I do think that
there are books that should goout of print and still available
in libraries and archives andother things.
(38:13):
You just can't tell once youstart amalgamating things. You
just really can't tell whatbasis someone determined
something was true.
Lisa Bayer (38:21):
That's a good point.
Bill Germano (38:23):
By the way, Outdated Knowledge is a great
title, Doug. So one of youshould commission a book called
Outdated Knowledge.
Lisa Bayer (38:29):
It's a series.
Bill Germano (38:32):
Yeah, is. It is.
Doug Armato (38:33):
Yeah. Too late for me.
Jennifer Crewe (38:36):
That's to perhaps us decide what should be
in print and what shouldn't.It's a little bit like us
deciding who gets tenure, whichsome people were criticizing us
for at some point. We decidewhat gets published and what
revised dissertations getpublished and then those people
get jobs and then get tenure andall that stuff. I just don't
(38:58):
think, well, first of all, Idon't think we have time. I
don't know about you, but Idon't have time to go look and
see what books we should neverdigitize, but I don't think it's
up to us.
I think as somebody said, thelibraries, people want to keep
that stuff around for people tosee, but I don't think we decide
that. I don't know.
Doug Armato (39:17):
I mean, over time, we had a project, a digital
project, I guess over twentyyears ago called the Minnesota
Archive Library, basically,where we put everything we could
find back in print from 1925 on.And this press has gone through
a lot of changes, so it was areal wide array of things. At
first, it was confusing to haveall these books, you know,
(39:38):
reappear. You know, it's likespecters from the past. But over
time, and it didn't even takethat long, scholars and students
and users, readers justbasically figured out what from
that mass was valuable.
It brought back to life somebooks which were actually
remarkable feats of scholarshipand had just been forgotten, and
(40:00):
the other one sunk basicallyright back to the level yeah, of
sort they'd had when we startedthe project.
Lisa Bayer (40:09):
But they are all still available
Doug Armato (40:12):
or no? Oddly enough, yes.
Lisa Bayer (40:15):
Okay, to my point. Anyway, yes. Yeah.
Bill Germano (40:20):
You talked a few minutes ago about various
changes that have affected howbooks are selected, made, and
brought out into the world. Andone or two of you have touched
on the question of the relationof monograph publishing to
tenure decisions. Well, youknow, it's like, okay. News to
nobody. There are no jobsanymore.
(40:41):
Tenure track jobs havedisappeared. And one consequence
of that, as I discovered at arecent conference, there are
fabulous people at juniorcolleges, community colleges,
remote satellite campuses,astonishing scholars who are
trying to write books or arewriting books. And, you know,
I'm optimistic for them. But Ithe question I wanted to ask,
(41:03):
and this is just mine, is whatdo you see as the ideal role for
scholarly publishers in relationto tenure decisions? Because
this always seems to hauntconversations about what counts
as adequate demonstration ofscholarly achievement?
Greg Britton (41:20):
I think you're right to point out that that's a
question that in ten years, I'mnot sure you would ask a bunch
of publishers, That tenure isfast disappearing, and there are
serious problems with that. ButI think in some ways, it makes
publishing a book with theuniversity press all that more
precious. And the few people whohave shots at those jobs are
(41:42):
eager and maybe desperate to getpublished by the right
university press.
Bill Germano (41:47):
Okay. The the the hardball softball question. What
is something that you've learnedfrom another person in this
podcast that informs yourprofessional life?
Greg Britton (41:58):
I can't find this piece of writing, but two over
two decades ago, Doug Armatowrote an essay called Think Like
a Publisher, which I read as ayoung editor, and it completely
changed how I think aboutpublishing. And I wish I could
find that. If you have it, sendit again because, I mean, I'd
(42:19):
love to see if it holds up. Butin my mind, it really changed
how I thought about not thinkinglike an editor, not thinking as
some marketing person, buttaking this 10,000 foot view of
what we actually do. It's reallychanged how my career went.
So thank you, Doug.
Jennifer Crewe (42:37):
Well, I'm gonna say something about that also
refers to Doug, but it is not aslofty as what you just said. It
is that I was amazed when hewent, I think first to
Louisiana, am I right, Doug?
Doug Armato (42:53):
Well, basic, but then Louisiana. Yeah. LSU.
Jennifer Crewe (42:56):
Okay. But, yeah, basic. But then, you know, I
kind of watched him go to allthese other university presses
after having gone to ColumbiaCollege, being at Columbia, and
Columbia was not a wonderfulplace to be at that point. Don't
quote me, I'm sure I'm gonna behonest. It was very, it was kind
of a strange place, although weboth had a mentor that we
discovered later there.
(43:18):
But I learned, you know, I said,oh, there are all these presses
all over the world. I mean, allover the country, but all over
the world in a sense that youcould go to and that you could
spend some time at and make adifference and then hop on to
something else. Not that I everfollowed that, but I always
really admired that about you,Doug.
Doug Armato (43:41):
I was always impressed that you stayed in the
same place.
Jennifer Crewe (43:45):
I know, really. Well, did have a little, what I
don't say to people, but whichis true, is that I've been here
twice. I'm halfway in commercialtextbook publishing. Yeah,
Doug Armato (44:00):
I mean, certainly that moving around. I mean going
broke was part of that. I meanliving in New York on a
publisher's salary.
Jennifer Crewe (44:08):
Yes, it's another thing. You
Doug Armato (44:10):
know, I mean it was a pretty easy bit of math to
just sort of look at how muchmoney I had remaining, and how
long that would last me before Istarted searching for similar
work, and I really loved thework, but searching for similar
work in parts of the countrythat were less expensive to live
in.
Jennifer Crewe (44:30):
True.
Doug Armato (44:31):
When the business was a little bit more relaxed
than it became, one thing Ilearned from watching Greg was
how to be a cutthroatcompetitor. Greg always had a
way of knowing exactly, youknow, what he wanted for where
he was acquiring books, where hewas editing books, and, you
(44:52):
know, going after it just ahammer and tongs, and there was
no room for gentility. And someof this was in the pre email
days. I mean, you know, when wewere all communicating with
stamps affixed to the upperright corners of envelopes and
things just didn't move thatfast.
Greg Britton (45:08):
Typewritten letters.
Bill Germano (45:10):
Yeah.
Lisa Bayer (45:12):
Well, will say I've saved all the emails that Doug
has sent me and or posters tolistserv over the years. I
envision this little sort ofHarvard Business Press sort of
like Doug Armato on managementand leadership little book,
airport book. Thing he told methat I quoted to our editor in
chief again this morning when wewere talking about a search that
(45:35):
we're having, and this issomething I think that speaks to
the quandary of the universitypress at the state flagship
institution that is not in NewYork City, that is not in an
urban area and the quandaries ofrecruitment sometimes, you know,
convincing someone they reallydo want to move to Athens,
(45:55):
Georgia or Champaign, Illinois,or Baton Rouge or wherever. And
Doug said that at Minnesota,they've had great luck with
growing their own. It's stuck inmy brain that, you know,
sometimes the best candidate isthe candidate right in front of
you.
There's something very sexyabout hiring someone high
(46:16):
profile star powered from far,far away, or a more prestigious
house, or what have you, butsometimes you have to grow your
own. And that has worked so wellfor us since I really understood
what that meant. And the otherthing is from Minnesota's
Centennial celebration, which isthis year. And the article in
(46:40):
Publishers Weekly about theiranniversary, Doug said something
like, you know, ten years ago orsomething, we just decided we
were going to have fun and thatthis work was going to be fun.
And that kind of gets back towhat Greg was saying about you
have to find the nourishment.
And in spite of all my othersort of grumbles on this
podcast, I think you do have todecide that it's going to be fun
(47:05):
in a nourishing and energizingway.
Dean Smith (47:09):
So I was just sitting here listening to you
guys about how do we end up inthese jobs and how did I end up
as a director of a press? I'llsay that Greg was very heavily
involved in that and teaching meabout you need to have an at
bat. And I tell this to folksthat are interested in becoming
of presses at bats. You need tosit around, have that table
where there are eight peopleasking you questions. And I
(47:29):
think there was a time, whereGreg had an app on his phone
where he knew where thedirectors were going and when
these jobs were gonna be comingopen.
And he's like, with a great hehad one of the great quotes of
all time. They're all fixerupper steam. You know, you need
to you got this different forms.Somebody needs siding. Somebody
needs
Bill Germano (47:46):
a new
Dean Smith (47:47):
in me. And and but the funniest thing ever was so
I've had the last few weeksbecause of the kind of battle
with the administration that'sbeen resolved. I went through
Steve Combs' correspondence, andthere was a note from Doug, and
it said, Dean will be a fineaddition, comma, I think. So so
(48:08):
I've taken that. We won't getinto the UPCC defection, but
that also taught me a lot too.
But I love you, and that we wentto the same high school and had
mister Hyers who looked like BenFranklin.
Jennifer Crewe (48:19):
Oh my god. That's amazing.
Doug Armato (48:22):
It's very true.
Bill Germano (48:23):
I was going to say there was an easy segue to
asking about Doug himself, butwe've already sort of begun
doing that. And I didn't make anote to myself. Would anyone
like to venture anecdote aboutDoug that hasn't been mentioned?
Greg Britton (48:38):
In 2004, Doug called me and said, I'm going to
the American Association ofUniversity Presses, and it's in
Vancouver. Are you going? And Isaid, I think I can go. And he
said, great, let's drive there.And we were in I was in St.
(49:01):
Paul and he in Minneapolis andhe picked me up and we drove,
but we drove across Canada, theentire length of all the
provinces.
Bill Germano (49:13):
How long did it take? I
Greg Britton (49:15):
don't remember, it was like weeks and weeks.
Lisa Bayer (49:17):
That's amazing. No, Doug always drove.
Jennifer Crewe (49:20):
I remember I always drove to all those
conferences.
Bill Germano (49:23):
You drove.
Doug Armato (49:25):
Best way to clear your head.
Lisa Bayer (49:27):
I will just say we've all been part of the AAUP,
the AU Press's listserv, AUPL, Idon't know how Doug's going to
live without that, for decadesand decades. Doug, if he weighed
in, it was usually very brief,you know, very succinct. On the
few occasions when someone hasticked off Doug Armato and he
(49:53):
posted his thoughts, it wasterrifying, frankly. And also I
saved all those as models forfor future for for I hope AI
doesn't ingest those becausewe're all in trouble.
Greg Britton (50:09):
Does not suffer fools gladly. Check.
Lisa Bayer (50:12):
Not. And and and if Doug if Doug sort of raised a
red flag about something, I wasfairly certain that I was right
there with him. I was veryalways, you know, the person who
says little, but when he doesspeak, you better pay attention.
Doug Armato (50:26):
I'll try and use it for the good.
Lisa Bayer (50:29):
You did.
Jennifer Crewe (50:31):
Well, sent to Bill and to Doug, our HR guy
came by one day and he foundthis memo in the file that
announced all the new people.And this was, I think, as you
said, Bill, 1978, I can'tremember. This was my first time
at Columbia. Among the newpeople, and of course this was
at an era when the HowlerMonkeys book sold well. So there
(50:52):
a lot of people who were hired,but Bill and Doug and I came on
board at Columbia in the samecouple of months.
It was really killer, so I PDFedit. That was really a great
thing.
Bill Germano (51:06):
Are we allowed to say what year was out loud?
Jennifer Crewe (51:08):
I think it was 'seventy eight,
Bill Germano (51:10):
I said it. It was 'seventy eight, yeah. 'seventy
eight, yeah.
Jennifer Crewe (51:13):
I think, Bill, you were working on your PhD or
your dissertation.
Bill Germano (51:17):
Yeah. I was.
Jennifer Crewe (51:19):
And I think, Doug, you were still in college.
Doug Armato (51:22):
I was. I had just, I think, become permanent in
order to to earn that notation,in order to be part of that
note. I was hired full time atthe Columbia University Press
actually about two months beforeI graduated.
Jennifer Crewe (51:36):
And I was so much older than you. I was in
graduate school.
Doug Armato (51:39):
Yeah. Oh
Bill Germano (51:40):
my Unsurprisingly, I remember a lot of the people
from 1978 in Columbia because itwas my first serious job. Well,
I think Doug, you got off thehook really easily. There's
nothing here that's actionable.Slightly disappointed in all of
you.
Lisa Bayer (51:59):
Dean has not spoken yet. Are you sitting on
something, Dean?
Dean Smith (52:03):
Just he was the first outside of the Hopkins. I
was at Hopkins, went to the SaltLake meeting and Doug came out
of the hotel and we walked to anindependent bookstore together.
And that was where I got to knowhim. I just was thankful because
I didn't really know anybodyelse outside of my colleagues at
Hopkins. So thank you.
Doug Armato (52:19):
The bookstore browse is my kind of icebreaker.
Greg Britton (52:22):
I just want to say, Doug, thank you very much.
You've been an amazing colleaguefor decades and an absolute
pleasure to have in our lives. Ilook forward to seeing what you
do next.
Doug Armato (52:37):
I'm curious myself.
Greg Britton (52:39):
I think it's going to involve lots of long road
trips and time in Hayward.
Doug Armato (52:44):
Yep, no doubt about it. I really do love this
profession and this business.The people that, you know, we
we've all worked with togetherhave just been terrific people
to get to know. And I stillremember when my our godson,
Beckett, he's a broker, said tome, let me get this straight. So
all day you sit at a desk andyou read books.
(53:05):
And I said, yeah, that'sbasically what the job is. He
says, and then you go home andyou read books. And I said,
yeah, that's basically what Ido. Basically, it's it's just
been the perfect career.
Lisa Bayer (53:18):
Yep. Yep.
Doug Armato (53:20):
Well, great to be able to enjoy this moment with
all of you, even if by digitalmeans.
Bill Germano (53:27):
Well, on that note, I'd like to thank all of
you for taking time for yourinsights and your stories
incriminating otherwise. AndDoug, congratulations once again
from your colleagues, yourfriends, and maybe most of all,
from your grateful authors. Andif you don't know what to do
with all that new time on yourhands, you can always write a
(53:49):
book.
Welcome. This podcast is an audio event in
honor of the retirement of DougArmato, director of the
University of Minnesota Press.I'm Bill Germano, professor of
English at Cooper Union in NewYork. My first professional life
was as editorial director atRoutledge. And before that, I'm
(00:23):
proud to say working at ColumbiaUniversity Press, I've been
invited to act as host for aconversation among a
distinguished slate ofuniversity press publishers as
they discuss some recent andenduring issues that shape
scholarly publishing today.
Before I introduce them, though,I want first to thank Maggie
(00:45):
Sattler, digital marketingmanager at the University of
Minnesota Press, for organizingour event, and, of course, Doug
Armato for providing us withthis occasion to speak with one
another. Doug, we make nopromises that we'll talk only
about the issues and not aboutyou. Now our group in
(01:06):
alphabetical order, Doug Armatois director of the University of
Minnesota Press. Beside a briefstint at basic books, Doug has
worked at five universitypresses. He's been at Minnesota
since 1998, more than half ofhis forty seven years in
publishing.
Lisa Baer is director of theUniversity of Georgia Press as
(01:30):
well as a past president of theAssociation of University
Presses. Greg Britton iseditorial director at Johns
Hopkins University Press.Jennifer Crew is associate
provost and director of ColumbiaUniversity Press. Jennifer has
been actively involved inexecutive boards at the
Association of UniversityPresses, the Modern Language
(01:52):
Association, and the Associationof American Publishers. Dean
Smith is director of DukeUniversity Press and also an
adjunct professor at GeorgeWashington University.
Lisa, Greg, Jennifer, and Dean,glad you're here. The format for
this podcast is very seriouslyimpromptu. Maggie urged us all
(02:16):
to come up with questions aboutthe world and the conditions of
scholarly publishing. So let'ssee how we might stir at the
scholarly publishing pot. I'dlike to pitch the first question
to Jennifer.
Jennifer, what has scholarlypublishing gained, and what has
it lost since we started in thebusiness?
Jennifer Crewe (02:36):
The core of it is the same. In the old days, we
used to sell many more copies ofany book. And my favorite title
from the early days of ColumbiaUniversity Press, which I quote
a lot, you've probably heard it,The Foraging Strategy of Howler
Monkeys in a A Study in MonkeyEconomics. We sold well over
(03:00):
1,000 copies of that book.
Bill Germano (03:02):
And
Jennifer Crewe (03:04):
probably nobody has exceeded the research in it.
But anyway, we would now sellprobably 100 of that. And that's
the big bad difference in termsof sales and supporting
ourselves through the books. Weused to support ourselves and
now we don't. That's the bigdifference, I would say.
Bill Germano (03:23):
Can I pitch the same ugly question to you, Lisa?
Lisa Bayer (03:26):
So I came in a little bit later than some of
the rest of you, not all of you.I don't remember a time when we
really supported ourselves. Dougsaid something about, is the
crisis in scholarly publishingstill with us? And it was a
crisis when I came in in thelate 1980s as a graduate intern.
(03:47):
So we know that the revenuestreams have certainly
diminished and diversified.
I think we've had to change theway we engage, and this might be
a positive. We have had to lookoutside. I think that university
presses and universities, to alarge extent, looked inside
(04:10):
inwardly for a long, long time.There was an exclusivity and
economic conditions have forcedus to look outside to the public
square to new audiences forbetter or worse?
Greg Britton (04:25):
So what I notice is that there are probably more
university presses now thanthere were twenty years ago.
They are more diverse than theywere twenty years ago. And yet
there is this economic pressureon all of them. And the ones
that are thriving or sustainingseem to have diversified their
(04:48):
revenue streams. It tends tofavor larger ones.
It tends to favor ones with sidehustles, like distribution
programs or digital aggregationprograms or journals programs.
But books continue to be really,I think, threatened in this
economy for those presses thatdon't have those side hustles as
(05:08):
I call them.
Bill Germano (05:09):
So you you've identified a whole bunch of
things in in those remarks. Andwhen I was at Columbia a long
time ago, the distributions werebecoming a very important part
of what the press did, theportfolio. Jean, you haven't
escaped this question. But,Jennifer, how important is what
Greg has indelibly referred toas the side hustle of
(05:30):
distribution to Columbia rightnow?
Jennifer Crewe (05:33):
Well, I would say it's not only the side
hustles, but the presses thatalso have endowments. There are
some presses that do haveendowments and that offsets any
losses they have. But for usright now, we do sales for a lot
of presses and it means we cansupport our own group and we
(05:53):
don't have to go get anothercommission rep group. But yes, I
would say the side hustles areessential, whatever they are,
because we can't make it workotherwise. You have to get
something else.
Now there are some publishersthat do regional publishing and
sometimes those books can help,but that's a little bit few and
far between, I think.
Greg Britton (06:15):
I'm now embarrassed that I said that my
colleagues who run a journalsprogram that dwarfs the books
program, our side hustle, theywould probably say our books
program is the side hustle.
Bill Germano (06:26):
Yeah. Well, I I I was going to indiscreetly
comment on that, but I thought Ican at least just once keep my
mouth shut. Dean, what's itlooking like at you on this
regard?
Dean Smith (06:39):
Sure. I I wanted to just follow-up on what Greg
said, but the books are thepersonality of the press.
They're the identity of thepress. The journals are the
mission driven aspect of what wedo. I mean, we're celebrating
our hundredth anniversary, andfor sixty years, this press was
moribund and was slated forclosure.
And it wasn't until Stanley Fishand Fredrik Jamieson and Evie
Kosovski, Sedgwick, and otherscame to this press that
(07:02):
transformed it. And thehumanities then transformed the
entire university, And theinterdisciplinary approach in a
renaissance in humanitiestransformed the whole entire
university. And yet no one wantsto tell that story, but I try to
tell that story. And, Lisa, whenyou you were talking about when
I got to Cornell, I don't thinkanyone in the administration
visited the press in years. Sotrying to do things like
(07:23):
publishing a book about theGrateful Dead show or doing
something like that to bringpeople like, We're here.
We're doing things. Or a bookabout John Cleese to sort of
play back. I was looking forthose opportunities to not be
isolated. But ancillaryrevenues, that's the first thing
I looked at when I got herebecause Poly external reviewers
said, you know, we had too manypeople, too many FTEs. And you
(07:44):
just are trying to figure outhow are you gonna maneuver more
ebook aggregations or more.
I mean, we're considering thingswe never would have. One of the
things we've gained is aknowledge of technology that we
maybe we didn't want, right? Orknowledge of project management
that maybe we didn't want. Likewithout a project manager on
some of these things, you'redone. But like we had recently
(08:04):
been asked to do ebook sales fora UK publisher.
Like just the sales andmarketing aspect of that. Now
that was something new, butservices, Bill, are definitely
something that we're looking attrying to do.
Doug Armato (08:19):
Yeah. I think just sort of adding another side of
the same issue is that the otherthing which has changed is the
customer base. I mean, when Istarted at Columbia, which was
around the same time that Billand Jennifer started, 80% of the
book sales were to libraries.
Bill Germano (08:37):
I know.
Doug Armato (08:38):
And so that was the base. I mean, that was the
market. And we considered thewhole effort to sell books to
individual readers and throughbookstores and other things. It
was almost like a hobbyist sideof the business. It wasn't like
where the money really was.
And I remember you know, lookingthrough green bar printouts of
(08:59):
sales for books, and you justsee line after line after line
of libraries and librarybooksellers. So that's changed a
lot, and it's just a lot harderto go retail.
Greg Britton (09:12):
Yep. Can you point to one thing that happened with
libraries? Was it simply theiratrophying budgets? Why did that
change?
Doug Armato (09:21):
Well, I mean, I think the universities have
changed, but also it's reallythe federal government. I mean,
you know, that we came into thebusiness sort of on the heels of
the National Defense EducationProgram in the federal
government, which supplied anenormous amount of money to
universities and caused a boomin higher ed, which I think in
(09:42):
the early days, I think those ofus who started them thought of
that as normal because that'swhen we started. But it wasn't
normal. It was a boom. It was apost Sputnik moment.
And university attendance youknow, literally doubled in ten
years. So that was the boom werode, and it it's really, you
know, been ebbing ever since.
Bill Germano (10:02):
There's a question that one of you crafted. Are
university presses anduniversity libraries still close
allies. And I think it's a it'sprovocative on on several
levels. Lisa, do you wanna jumpin on that one?
Lisa Bayer (10:16):
Yeah. I I think that was Doug's question, and that
was a really good one. Sorry.Sorry to out you, Doug, but it
was a great question when I readit. So I'm sitting in the main
library at the University ofGeorgia right now in our suite
on the 3rd Floor, and I just hada meeting with a new librarian
this morning.
They make a point of all newdepartment heads meet all other
(10:39):
new department heads in thelibraries, and that includes the
press and our literary journals.I was explaining to our new
Assistant Director of UserServices, the relationship
between libraries and universitypresses, a little bit about why
Georgia moved the press toreport to the libraries about 17
ago. And it's the fault of, Ithink it was Teresa Sullivan at
(11:02):
Michigan because she did itfirst and our provost was
friends with her and he wantedfewer direct reports, he's like,
I'm going to do that at Georgia.So there are two ways to think
about this. There's thereporting relationship, which I
think 45 or 50 universitypresses now report to their
libraries at their institutions,which is kind of wild if you
(11:25):
think about how that'sprogressed.
But then also the relationshipsbetween presses and libraries
that Doug alluded to. Fortyyears ago they bought 80% of our
books and that has absolutelychanged. And I personally love
and appreciate and have learnedso much from being part of the
(11:46):
UGA libraries. It's like beingin a learning lab all the time
when we sit down together asdepartment heads, 20 of us or
whatever every month, and theyask me questions. I ask them
questions.
I grouse when they mentioncertain things that they want.
And I'm sure they grouse when Isay things about our pricing or
(12:07):
our ebook programs. I think itcan be viewed as a very positive
thing, but I also, it'scertainly not the relationship
that it once was. Absolutelynot.
Bill Germano (12:19):
Doug, since you've been outed by Lisa in terms of
the question, do you wanna makeit more provocative, or do you
wanna try to respond to itsubstantively?
Doug Armato (12:29):
Well, I tell a story, which is what I do most
of the time. And I say that thefirst library conference I went
to, which was back when I was atthe University of Georgia Press,
it was a Charleston ConferenceOn Library Acquisitions. And I
spoke there, and the librariansaid, several of them said, Oh,
well, you're the good guys. Welike you. It's the scientific
(12:52):
publishers, it's the Elsevierswho are really making our lives
difficult, but we really likeyou.
And over time, that became to,again, feel like more of a
distant relationship, and tosome extent it's tempting to see
libraries as a proxy foruniversity budgets, and just
(13:14):
sort of see that as the emphasisof universities has changed away
from a lot of the fields that wepublish in, that basically the
libraries have followed theuniversity's priorities. I think
it's a way in which it accessthe university's management of
what we do and what faculty do,is to reduce the resources
(13:35):
available to the humanities andsocial sciences.
Jennifer Crewe (13:39):
Yeah, I just wanna jump in and say one thing.
I really do think that provostsor administrators think, okay,
books and books, so they shouldgo together. And there isn't
really much thought given to howdifferent we are. They wanna put
up stuff for free and they don'treally want the physical objects
either. And that we wanna earnrevenue and sell the stuff.
(14:02):
And I just think there are somany different things that we do
and also the systems, thereisn't really that much synergy
to be had in the systems that werun. I mean, the administrators,
they want to save money and sothey want to say, oh, you do
this and you do that, you can doit together. But actually, I
think it's more expensive forthe library to take on some of
(14:23):
the stuff that we do.
Lisa Bayer (14:25):
So I agree with Doug and Jennifer, and I remember
after I came to Georgia it wasthe first press where I had been
that had reported to a libraryand Joe Esposito wrote this
scathing Scholarly Kitchen piecesaying having a press report to
a library is like putting thepig in the butcher's shop or
(14:46):
something. I don't even rememberwhat it was, but it was awful
and I thought, oh my god, whathave I done? But I will say
everything is dependent uponculture and relationships. We
have actually benefitedtremendously from working very
closely with our metadatalibrarians and the Digital
(15:09):
Library of Georgia and SpecialCollections around open access
projects, metadata standards. Wepoached a metadata librarian
from the libraries to join thepress all and those things could
have happened if we were, youknow, in separate reporting
arrangements.
I doubt though that we wouldhave the mutual understanding
(15:31):
and respect for one another.Both and.
Doug Armato (15:34):
And you're right that there's people involved
here. There's faculty. And, youknow, faculty are also
embattled, but faculty are verycommitted to the books. And, you
know, years ago, a colleague, wewe all know, a former colleague,
Lindsay Waters of, HarvardUniversity Press, gave a talk
here at Minnesota and was justtalking about the importance of
(15:55):
books actually selling, and howthere were more books being
published than the market couldabsorb. And it was a very cold
eyed impression of things.
The first question he got wasfrom a graduate student saying,
so what I hear you saying isyou're gonna take our books away
from us. And Lindsay sort ofsuccessfully backpedaled on
that, but that's sort of wherethe rubber hits the road.
Dean Smith (16:16):
I've had relationship with the the Duke
Library since I've arrived, andand there's been no talk of us
reporting to them. Weincreasingly find ourselves in a
similar position of trying todemonstrate our value library as
well. They got hit with a major$6,500,000 cut at the beginning
of COVID. And then no more printacquisition for, like, two
(16:38):
years. And it was great becauseI go it's a very kind of back
channel relationship where I'mlike, hey, you know, my
warehouse is about to be closed.
I found out people were stillworking in the library. So I'm
like, maybe I don't need toclose the warehouse. And kept it
sort of partially open or elsewe would have been facing. So
the library has been a reallykey strategic partner for me
since I've been here, whetherit's, hey. Do you guys wanna get
(16:59):
in on this thing for this book,Duke author?
Do you wanna open this book? Doyou have you know, there's a
great relationship there.Anytime I need to know what's
going on in the provost'soffice, I reach out to Joe
Salem. He's very helpful. Butincreasingly find ourselves
trying to find out, hey.
What's gonna happen next? Whatare we we've we had to lay off
44 librarians, recently becauseof the funding cuts, and that
(17:20):
was a very difficult situation.But strategically, we share a
fundraising resource. So they'vebrought us into we've done joint
events. There's just a kind ofgreat synergy between us, and
there's no reportingrelationship.
So whenever I need something hehappens to be a Grateful Dead
fan with along with me, so we doother things as well along those
lines and sort of subversivemoments that people do can't
(17:43):
figure out. You know, that'sbeen a really good I think we
have to, like, find thosealliances in this situation, and
and I, you know, I've enjoyedthat so far. But great question.
Bill Germano (17:53):
Following up on that, I was gonna ask a question
about the work one needs to doto adjust and explain a public
face. How is the outside worldmeant to understand what a
university press does, and howhas that changed over the course
of of your career? Greg, are youfeeling brave?
Greg Britton (18:15):
Yeah. I'm I'm I'm, stalling for time, actually. I
should say great question, whichis the the great, time staller.
No. I find that I'm looking forbooks both personally and in
acquisitions that solve anidentifiable problem.
(18:35):
When I get a manuscript, when Iget a proposal, I think, what
work does this book do for us?And I'm not sure that I would
have asked that question twentyyears ago in as sharper terms.
It's really looking for thingswith a pragmatic edge. Even
works of literature solvecertain problems sometimes. So I
(18:56):
will sweep those into that aswell.
Jennifer Crewe (18:59):
I would say, I mean, for those of us who are
here in the Pleistocene era,Doug and Bill and I, question.
We didn't think about thegeneral audience. We were so
because libraries, the 80% thatDoug mentioned, they were buying
the books. And so we were thereto publish new research, to get
people tenured and promoted andto publish for the libraries and
(19:22):
the scholar community. But atsome point, and I don't know
exactly what year, but it wasthe year when a lot of the trade
publishers were realizing, oh,I'm only selling 2,000 copies of
whatever it is.
And they stopped doing highbrow, I would say, general
interest books. And we came inand swept them up. And then we
had to learn how to do thingsdifferently and reach a general
(19:45):
audience. And I think now whenwe talk around the table about
what, well, around the zoomsquares about what books we're
gonna do, we always think now isthis gonna be general interest
or scholarly? And we make surewe do at least, half of the
books can travel acrossdisciplines.
(20:06):
Whereas before we were reallyjust thinking, we'll do a book
for a particular microdiscipline. But now we need that
general audience, and we'rehappy to have it when we can get
it.
Doug Armato (20:19):
Yeah, because as we went from that 80% libraries to
say 25% libraries and the restselling to readers and
booksellers, obviously the mixhas changed, so we've gotten
much stronger on that side. Ithink that the ground for that
transition was partly laid byBill Germano. I mean, because
(20:40):
when he went to Routledge, allof a sudden books had four color
covers, and it's like, where didthis come from? I mean,
university presses were knownfor sort of dowdy one or two
color covers, if that, andRoutledge sort of was a press
that began to signal thatscholarship could be exciting
and that it should have its ownidentity. And I think that we
(21:03):
didn't know why at that point,but we we found out why as the
years went on.
Bill Germano (21:07):
Minnesota's list was so important and Duke's list
too. But I think I and Hopkins.But I think I looked at those
houses, and I tracked certaineditors, and I would say, darn
it. That editor got thatmanuscript before I could even
have an opportunity to talk toanybody about it. But there was
(21:28):
so much energy going on in theeighties, into the nineties.
You stole ideas wherever youcould, and that was part of our
job description back in the day.
Greg Britton (21:38):
I feel that energy every day, and maybe it's a
nervous energy or a competitiveenergy or an existential dread.
I don't know.
Lisa Bayer (21:48):
I think that it's difficult to feel that kind of
enthusiasm and hopefulnesssometimes. You know, if you read
Inside Higher Ed in theChronicle every day and look at
the horrible things that arehappening in terms of pressures
on scholars and scholarship, andit's not even on scholars, just
(22:11):
on smart people. It doesn't haveto limit it to that. So I still
get excited about books from ourtrade list to our scholarly list
and our creative list. But Idon't know, Greg, and maybe it's
just also because we're all of acertain age.
It's a little bit harder now, Ithink.
Greg Britton (22:30):
Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's me. I fall in love
every day. When I see a bookproposal that I think, oh my
god,
Bill Germano (22:38):
is So
Greg Britton (22:41):
anyway, it's optimism over reality, maybe.
Bill Germano (22:46):
This is a podcast that's going to be listened to
by people who are alreadyconnected to scholarly
publishing, but it is a job forhopeless romantics. You have to
be able to fall in love everyday with ideas and sometimes
tolerate the people behind theideas and sometimes you like
(23:06):
them a lot. But if you onlypublish people you like, you'll
go out of business reallyquickly. And getting excited by
ideas that you cannot possiblyunderstand as well as the author
does is an act of enthusiastichumility that you have to
sustain absolutely every day.That's the thing I most miss
about that.
(23:26):
But, honestly, it's a lot of itis like teaching. You know, I do
a lot of talking to people abouttheir works, their manuscripts.
And it's funny. We were talkingbefore about you could sell a
thousand copies when Jennifertalked about the howler monkeys.
Back then, they could have 500pages of research.
Now you have to have a question.The howler monkeys wanna know
(23:47):
what you have for them in waysthey didn't care about forty
years ago. And I think that'sthe so what? Jerry Graff and his
wife have that little book, theysay, I say. It says the two most
important questions when you'rewriting something is the first
one is, so what?
And the second question is,whoever thought otherwise? And I
(24:07):
use this in every presentationabout writing, and I watch
people cringe because they'relooking at their work trying to
think, what's the takeaway?What's at stake in what I'm
producing? Not my homework, butwhat I want people to take away
and use. If I were still in thebusiness, that's what I would be
trying to focus on.
Jennifer Crewe (24:26):
Also, would say you have to focus because now
with attention spans, we can'thave 500 pages of research. We
have to have, like, at the most,80,000 words, And whatever it so
they have to distill it down tothe, so what.
Doug Armato (24:46):
I mean, I'd also think there's a general strategy
of, as Bill described, oh, well,looking at all of the other
presses, they get things thatyou wish you'd gotten. And to
me, a lot of it boils down towhat the Baltimore Orioles
infielder Wiggly Killer said,hit them where they ain't.
You're always looking for theareas that are underserved, the
(25:06):
topics which hadn't been lookedat. I mean, just for something
that stands out. Trade houses,commercial publishing is very
risk averse, which is somethingthat Scholarly Publishing had
the reputation for for a longtime, as being sort of dusty.
But in reality, in a lot oftimes, we're out there just
trying to break into new areasand say something people haven't
(25:28):
thought before. That I think iswhere the serial love affair
that Greg refers to really comesin. It's just like a query shows
up in your email inbox and youjust say, Oh, I haven't heard
that. You know, that's reallyinteresting.
Lisa Bayer (25:43):
Can I say that what I fall in love with every day is
that we still have 15 to 20students, graduate,
undergraduate, apprenticing inthe press every year, young
people who still want to bepublishers? And that to me is
what is hopeful. I just hope weleave something for them. Forty
(26:08):
years ago, that was me and thatwas everyone on this call. And
now, and they're still comingand we're turning them away and
our donors are still fundingthem because they believe that
this is a career, this is a pathworth following for a lot of
good reasons.
Jennifer Crewe (26:24):
Just exactly that, we have an editorial
assistant opening, you know, 400applicants.
Lisa Bayer (26:28):
Yes, yes.
Jennifer Crewe (26:30):
Wow. I mean, a lot of those like at least half
say, but even two, half are justrobo, you know, but the rest are
legitimate and good.
Greg Britton (26:40):
Both Dean and I teach in the George Washington
Publishing Program. And thissemester, I have 50 students who
want to be acquiring editors andare getting a master's in in
this. It's something, one didn'tneed when we came into
publishing.
Jennifer Crewe (26:59):
I don't think there was such a thing.
Greg Britton (27:01):
There was not such a thing, and yet there is this
enthusiasm for being inpublishing in this new
generation. So Lisa, I see itall the time and it's exciting.
Dean Smith (27:11):
We have a lot of PhD students come in post grad, you
know, that and they're workingmainly in our editorial
department and a lot of thosehave stayed on. They stay on.
They go into publicity and theyit's a very unique thing.
Lisa Bayer (27:25):
Our last four full time hires have been PhDs, newly
minted PhDs with humanitiesdegrees.
Greg Britton (27:35):
You know, when I think of these students, the
young ones coming up, I think ofhow we have all been stewards of
our publishing houses and ofpublishing itself. And when I
think of what Doug has done, Icame to Hopkins, which is
happily the oldest universitypress in America. And, I opened
(27:56):
a file drawer, and I foundletters, emails from Doug
Armato. And I can tell you Dougwrites a mean email when he
wants to. And I'm keenly awarethat before Doug, there were
others, and there were othersbefore them.
And we all run these, sort oflegacy programs that some days
(28:17):
look like nineteenth centurybusinesses. We're manufacturing
things and putting them inwarehouses and then selling them
sometimes on the streets. Andother times are completely
digitally forward techcompanies. But that's all part
of that legacy. I'm aware everyday that it's like, don't break
this because there are peoplewho will come after us.
Bill Germano (28:41):
A couple of people have mentioned AI, and one of
the questions you guys came upwith is twither AI. I like that
twither. How is the AI tsunamidifferent from or similar to
past massive paradigm changesfor publishing such as the
Internet and ebooks? Actually,
Dean Smith (29:03):
this morning was talking about how it kind of
reminds me of 1995 when we putthe first journal online and I
was working with CharlesWatkins' father on the journal
Material Science Bill, that wasthe Chapman and Hall side of the
Thompson acquisition whenexecutives from Thompson
Information Services Limitedlooked at sodomy and the pirate
tradition, and it was like, whatis going on here? But, you know,
(29:27):
I guess I did experiment withsome usage stats and was asking
questions of the CHAT GPTvariation, and I came up with
some really interesting answers.But as a teacher in the program
with Greg at GW, I'm wonderingwhen the student's gonna be able
to select their avatar, selectthe course. I mean, I've checked
some of my lessons, you know,and and to see how sophisticated
(29:49):
it is, especially even aboutuniversity presses. And I was
not turned away, let's say.
I didn't use any of it, but itwas I was like, hey. This is in
the ballpark kind of thing. AndDoug, the work that you did with
Manifold, which is amazing andhelped transform Brown and and
many of us to kind of get somesolutions over to some of these
university departments. We theiNowdy Center was a a user of it
(30:12):
for a few years and then decidedthat publishing was too hard.
But but when you think about themonograph of like, here's the
monograph, here's the PDF, couldyou add links of of relevant
video, could you add citations,could you add text to those
citations, full text?
We're not that far away fromsomething like that, I don't
(30:33):
think. I don't know what thatbecomes or what that looks like
or how it gets paid for orwhether a box gets dropped off
at the library, I have no idea.But you could imagine that it
would be easier than us tryingto get all of that stuff
together. You know, that's justsort of where it stops. I'm a
little bit afraid to go anyfurther there.
We have a project coming outspeaking of regional publishing
and the history of RTP, which atthe end it's like RTP is a slow
(30:56):
adopter of AI. You know, allthose companies, the tech
companies, biotech companiesthere are supposedly slow
adopters. Well, is that a badthing or a good thing? You know,
you don't know.
Greg Britton (31:05):
As I think about the threat that monographs
especially face, I'm wonderingif the tools of AI can be
brought to bear on making thosepossible. And the alternative is
that monographs disappear. As weacquire fewer of them, we
publish fewer of them. Andthat's sort of heartbreaking to
(31:28):
me to think of. I would love toknow how to use those tools to
make it possible.
I don't know the answer to that,but that's the question that I'm
curious about. And I mean thethe tools of AI in doing all of
the routine tasks of publishingthat need a human to keep an eye
on, but that are expensive andtake up a lot of time.
(31:48):
Constructing metadata, writingalt text for images, whatever
else.
Jennifer Crewe (31:53):
You know, one thing about being in publishing,
there's some challenge orsomething new probably every two
years, maybe every year. Andthat's the part that keeps it
going and keeps us on our toesand wondering what the hell. And
this is such a moment, I think.I mean, we had that when the
Kindle came out or even when theiPhone came out. I remember
(32:16):
there have been moments when wewere wondering were books gonna
continue to exist?
You know, was it all gonna bedigital? Which didn't happen.
And I think with AI, we're in amoment like that, but it's also,
it's not just us, it's the wholeuniversity. We have to see how
everything changes as a resultof this. But I think what Greg
(32:37):
just said about getting the moremundane little tasks done that
we wouldn't have to that's agood use of it.
Lisa Bayer (32:46):
Yeah. And a lot of publishers are already doing
that, particularly in marketingand ED and P. I agree with
Jennifer. I think that thistsunami, it's going to come. It
may or may not hit us.
It might dissipate owing to whatI think is some sort of false
economic support. There's nothere there in some ways. Also
(33:07):
when I hear my 17 year old sonsay, I want to use my brain. I'm
shocked that he says thatfrankly, but I want to use my
brain mom. I don't want to useAI, but that gives me, okay, the
pendulum will swing.
It may knock a few of us off onthe way, but 85% of our sales
are still print books.
Doug Armato (33:27):
Right. I mean, what you're saying is very helpful,
but it's also that technologysometimes appears on the horizon
as a threat, but the other sideof that is culture. And culture
tends to mediate how we usetechnology and what it means to
us and how much space it takesup. We've certainly seen that
over time with ebooks. That Imean, it started out looking
(33:49):
like a threat.
I remember a universitylibrarian here at Minnesota I
worked with saying, you know,once the technology is
perfected, we really only aregoing to need one copy of each
of these, globally. So you sortof feel that sense of doom, but
then you find out, well, peopleare using ebooks differently
(34:09):
than print books. They use themfor different functions. They
have senses of affiliation orobject fetishism, which leads
them towards the books andthat's professors, but it's also
students. So the culturemoderates the technology again
and again.
So
Lisa Bayer (34:29):
what you're saying is we think of AI right now as
this opaque, oh my God threat,but it will be filtered and
shifted and changed by people,by the things my son is hearing
on TikTok or whatever in a verysmall way. Yeah, no. And
actually that's helpful too.
Doug Armato (34:48):
Yeah. And there's an element of passion and desire
and love, which is the word Gregused, you know, that runs
through all of this. That's, Ithink, what keeps it afloat
because the technology itself isnot always helpful.
Greg Britton (35:02):
It seems like one of the greatest promises of AI
in the university is that itallows for individualized
learning, learning at your ownpace. Guess what else does that?
A book. K? A book is theultimate individualized
learning.
So, I don't think we're doneyet.
Bill Germano (35:22):
I think the same the same librarian who predicted
that ultimately we only need onecopy of a book globally is
probably the person who saidthat books never need to go out
of print. And I'm just curious,following up on one of the
questions that one of you sent,does a book ever need to go out
(35:43):
of print? Should books ever goout of print?
Greg Britton (35:46):
Oh my. At Hopkins, we have a room which is our
library, which is books in puborder from the eighteen
seventies through the present.And as I shelf read in there, I
see books all the time that I amreally proud are now out of
print. Stop by. I'm happy toshow them to you.
Bill Germano (36:14):
Are there other implications work wise of
keeping books in print, quote,unquote, forever?
Lisa Bayer (36:20):
I think that right now, it's relatively simple to
digitize a backlist title. Itcosts something like $300 to get
the files and put them intovarious third party aggregators
and retailers and others. Whenthat changes, when those
economics change, then that willchange it for us. Know, right
(36:42):
now it's fairly simple if youhave the capacity. And I would
also argue that we all havebooks on our backlist that are
still in print that areobjectionable or, you know, of
their time.
Part of me thinks they should beavailable. They should be part
of the record.
Greg Britton (37:03):
That's what libraries are for.
Lisa Bayer (37:05):
Well, maybe, but what if you live really far from
a library and you want to see acopy of the Confederate Receipt
book, which was one of our bestsellers. I don't know. Doug
remembers that book.
Doug Armato (37:18):
Oh yeah. Coffee Made of Acorns. Never forget it.
Lisa Bayer (37:21):
Actually, are others that are worse, but, but I don't
know. Should we be in the, inthe position of making those
decisions?
Doug Armato (37:31):
I think that this is especially keen in an era
when aggregation tools such asAI are learning or training
themselves in a lot of cases onquestionable information,
questionable or false. And howthe algorithms work determines
what's there. But at the end ofthe day, without the context,
(37:51):
you don't really know theperspective that those facts are
issuing out of and that they'rebeing shaped by. So I think
there's always a worry abouthaving too much outdated
knowledge out there in theworld. And so I do think that
there are books that should goout of print and still available
in libraries and archives andother things.
(38:13):
You just can't tell once youstart amalgamating things. You
just really can't tell whatbasis someone determined
something was true.
Lisa Bayer (38:21):
That's a good point.
Bill Germano (38:23):
By the way, Outdated Knowledge is a great
title, Doug. So one of youshould commission a book called
Outdated Knowledge.
Lisa Bayer (38:29):
It's a series.
Bill Germano (38:32):
Yeah, is. It is.
Doug Armato (38:33):
Yeah. Too late for me.
Jennifer Crewe (38:36):
That's to perhaps us decide what should be
in print and what shouldn't.It's a little bit like us
deciding who gets tenure, whichsome people were criticizing us
for at some point. We decidewhat gets published and what
revised dissertations getpublished and then those people
get jobs and then get tenure andall that stuff. I just don't
(38:58):
think, well, first of all, Idon't think we have time. I
don't know about you, but Idon't have time to go look and
see what books we should neverdigitize, but I don't think it's
up to us.
I think as somebody said, thelibraries, people want to keep
that stuff around for people tosee, but I don't think we decide
that. I don't know.
Doug Armato (39:17):
I mean, over time, we had a project, a digital
project, I guess over twentyyears ago called the Minnesota
Archive Library, basically,where we put everything we could
find back in print from 1925 on.And this press has gone through
a lot of changes, so it was areal wide array of things. At
first, it was confusing to haveall these books, you know,
(39:38):
reappear. You know, it's likespecters from the past. But over
time, and it didn't even takethat long, scholars and students
and users, readers justbasically figured out what from
that mass was valuable.
It brought back to life somebooks which were actually
remarkable feats of scholarshipand had just been forgotten, and
(40:00):
the other one sunk basicallyright back to the level yeah, of
sort they'd had when we startedthe project.
Lisa Bayer (40:09):
But they are all still available
Doug Armato (40:12):
or no? Oddly enough, yes.
Lisa Bayer (40:15):
Okay, to my point. Anyway, yes. Yeah.
Bill Germano (40:20):
You talked a few minutes ago about various
changes that have affected howbooks are selected, made, and
brought out into the world. Andone or two of you have touched
on the question of the relationof monograph publishing to
tenure decisions. Well, youknow, it's like, okay. News to
nobody. There are no jobsanymore.
(40:41):
Tenure track jobs havedisappeared. And one consequence
of that, as I discovered at arecent conference, there are
fabulous people at juniorcolleges, community colleges,
remote satellite campuses,astonishing scholars who are
trying to write books or arewriting books. And, you know,
I'm optimistic for them. But Ithe question I wanted to ask,
(41:03):
and this is just mine, is whatdo you see as the ideal role for
scholarly publishers in relationto tenure decisions? Because
this always seems to hauntconversations about what counts
as adequate demonstration ofscholarly achievement?
Greg Britton (41:20):
I think you're right to point out that that's a
question that in ten years, I'mnot sure you would ask a bunch
of publishers, That tenure isfast disappearing, and there are
serious problems with that. ButI think in some ways, it makes
publishing a book with theuniversity press all that more
precious. And the few people whohave shots at those jobs are
(41:42):
eager and maybe desperate to getpublished by the right
university press.
Bill Germano (41:47):
Okay. The the the hardball softball question. What
is something that you've learnedfrom another person in this
podcast that informs yourprofessional life?
Greg Britton (41:58):
I can't find this piece of writing, but two over
two decades ago, Doug Armatowrote an essay called Think Like
a Publisher, which I read as ayoung editor, and it completely
changed how I think aboutpublishing. And I wish I could
find that. If you have it, sendit again because, I mean, I'd
(42:19):
love to see if it holds up. Butin my mind, it really changed
how I thought about not thinkinglike an editor, not thinking as
some marketing person, buttaking this 10,000 foot view of
what we actually do. It's reallychanged how my career went.
So thank you, Doug.
Jennifer Crewe (42:37):
Well, I'm gonna say something about that also
refers to Doug, but it is not aslofty as what you just said. It
is that I was amazed when hewent, I think first to
Louisiana, am I right, Doug?
Doug Armato (42:53):
Well, basic, but then Louisiana. Yeah. LSU.
Jennifer Crewe (42:56):
Okay. But, yeah, basic. But then, you know, I
kind of watched him go to allthese other university presses
after having gone to ColumbiaCollege, being at Columbia, and
Columbia was not a wonderfulplace to be at that point. Don't
quote me, I'm sure I'm gonna behonest. It was very, it was kind
of a strange place, although weboth had a mentor that we
discovered later there.
(43:18):
But I learned, you know, I said,oh, there are all these presses
all over the world. I mean, allover the country, but all over
the world in a sense that youcould go to and that you could
spend some time at and make adifference and then hop on to
something else. Not that I everfollowed that, but I always
really admired that about you,Doug.
Doug Armato (43:41):
I was always impressed that you stayed in the
same place.
Jennifer Crewe (43:45):
I know, really. Well, did have a little, what I
don't say to people, but whichis true, is that I've been here
twice. I'm halfway in commercialtextbook publishing. Yeah,
Doug Armato (44:00):
I mean, certainly that moving around. I mean going
broke was part of that. I meanliving in New York on a
publisher's salary.
Jennifer Crewe (44:08):
Yes, it's another thing. You
Doug Armato (44:10):
know, I mean it was a pretty easy bit of math to
just sort of look at how muchmoney I had remaining, and how
long that would last me before Istarted searching for similar
work, and I really loved thework, but searching for similar
work in parts of the countrythat were less expensive to live
in.
Jennifer Crewe (44:30):
True.
Doug Armato (44:31):
When the business was a little bit more relaxed
than it became, one thing Ilearned from watching Greg was
how to be a cutthroatcompetitor. Greg always had a
way of knowing exactly, youknow, what he wanted for where
he was acquiring books, where hewas editing books, and, you
(44:52):
know, going after it just ahammer and tongs, and there was
no room for gentility. And someof this was in the pre email
days. I mean, you know, when wewere all communicating with
stamps affixed to the upperright corners of envelopes and
things just didn't move thatfast.
Greg Britton (45:08):
Typewritten letters.
Bill Germano (45:10):
Yeah.
Lisa Bayer (45:12):
Well, will say I've saved all the emails that Doug
has sent me and or posters tolistserv over the years. I
envision this little sort ofHarvard Business Press sort of
like Doug Armato on managementand leadership little book,
airport book. Thing he told methat I quoted to our editor in
chief again this morning when wewere talking about a search that
(45:35):
we're having, and this issomething I think that speaks to
the quandary of the universitypress at the state flagship
institution that is not in NewYork City, that is not in an
urban area and the quandaries ofrecruitment sometimes, you know,
convincing someone they reallydo want to move to Athens,
(45:55):
Georgia or Champaign, Illinois,or Baton Rouge or wherever. And
Doug said that at Minnesota,they've had great luck with
growing their own. It's stuck inmy brain that, you know,
sometimes the best candidate isthe candidate right in front of
you.
There's something very sexyabout hiring someone high
(46:16):
profile star powered from far,far away, or a more prestigious
house, or what have you, butsometimes you have to grow your
own. And that has worked so wellfor us since I really understood
what that meant. And the otherthing is from Minnesota's
Centennial celebration, which isthis year. And the article in
(46:40):
Publishers Weekly about theiranniversary, Doug said something
like, you know, ten years ago orsomething, we just decided we
were going to have fun and thatthis work was going to be fun.
And that kind of gets back towhat Greg was saying about you
have to find the nourishment.
And in spite of all my othersort of grumbles on this
podcast, I think you do have todecide that it's going to be fun
(47:05):
in a nourishing and energizingway.
Dean Smith (47:09):
So I was just sitting here listening to you
guys about how do we end up inthese jobs and how did I end up
as a director of a press? I'llsay that Greg was very heavily
involved in that and teaching meabout you need to have an at
bat. And I tell this to folksthat are interested in becoming
of presses at bats. You need tosit around, have that table
where there are eight peopleasking you questions. And I
(47:29):
think there was a time, whereGreg had an app on his phone
where he knew where thedirectors were going and when
these jobs were gonna be comingopen.
And he's like, with a great hehad one of the great quotes of
all time. They're all fixerupper steam. You know, you need
to you got this different forms.Somebody needs siding. Somebody
needs
Bill Germano (47:46):
a new
Dean Smith (47:47):
in me. And and but the funniest thing ever was so
I've had the last few weeksbecause of the kind of battle
with the administration that'sbeen resolved. I went through
Steve Combs' correspondence, andthere was a note from Doug, and
it said, Dean will be a fineaddition, comma, I think. So so
(48:08):
I've taken that. We won't getinto the UPCC defection, but
that also taught me a lot too.
But I love you, and that we wentto the same high school and had
mister Hyers who looked like BenFranklin.
Jennifer Crewe (48:19):
Oh my god. That's amazing.
Doug Armato (48:22):
It's very true.
Bill Germano (48:23):
I was going to say there was an easy segue to
asking about Doug himself, butwe've already sort of begun
doing that. And I didn't make anote to myself. Would anyone
like to venture anecdote aboutDoug that hasn't been mentioned?
Greg Britton (48:38):
In 2004, Doug called me and said, I'm going to
the American Association ofUniversity Presses, and it's in
Vancouver. Are you going? And Isaid, I think I can go. And he
said, great, let's drive there.And we were in I was in St.
(49:01):
Paul and he in Minneapolis andhe picked me up and we drove,
but we drove across Canada, theentire length of all the
provinces.
Bill Germano (49:13):
How long did it take? I
Greg Britton (49:15):
don't remember, it was like weeks and weeks.
Lisa Bayer (49:17):
That's amazing. No, Doug always drove.
Jennifer Crewe (49:20):
I remember I always drove to all those
conferences.
Bill Germano (49:23):
You drove.
Doug Armato (49:25):
Best way to clear your head.
Lisa Bayer (49:27):
I will just say we've all been part of the AAUP,
the AU Press's listserv, AUPL, Idon't know how Doug's going to
live without that, for decadesand decades. Doug, if he weighed
in, it was usually very brief,you know, very succinct. On the
few occasions when someone hasticked off Doug Armato and he
(49:53):
posted his thoughts, it wasterrifying, frankly. And also I
saved all those as models forfor future for for I hope AI
doesn't ingest those becausewe're all in trouble.
Greg Britton (50:09):
Does not suffer fools gladly. Check.
Lisa Bayer (50:12):
Not. And and and if Doug if Doug sort of raised a
red flag about something, I wasfairly certain that I was right
there with him. I was veryalways, you know, the person who
says little, but when he doesspeak, you better pay attention.
Doug Armato (50:26):
I'll try and use it for the good.
Lisa Bayer (50:29):
You did.
Jennifer Crewe (50:31):
Well, sent to Bill and to Doug, our HR guy
came by one day and he foundthis memo in the file that
announced all the new people.And this was, I think, as you
said, Bill, 1978, I can'tremember. This was my first time
at Columbia. Among the newpeople, and of course this was
at an era when the HowlerMonkeys book sold well. So there
(50:52):
a lot of people who were hired,but Bill and Doug and I came on
board at Columbia in the samecouple of months.
It was really killer, so I PDFedit. That was really a great
thing.
Bill Germano (51:06):
Are we allowed to say what year was out loud?
Jennifer Crewe (51:08):
I think it was 'seventy eight,
Bill Germano (51:10):
I said it. It was 'seventy eight, yeah. 'seventy
eight, yeah.
Jennifer Crewe (51:13):
I think, Bill, you were working on your PhD or
your dissertation.
Bill Germano (51:17):
Yeah. I was.
Jennifer Crewe (51:19):
And I think, Doug, you were still in college.
Doug Armato (51:22):
I was. I had just, I think, become permanent in
order to to earn that notation,in order to be part of that
note. I was hired full time atthe Columbia University Press
actually about two months beforeI graduated.
Jennifer Crewe (51:36):
And I was so much older than you. I was in
graduate school.
Doug Armato (51:39):
Yeah. Oh
Bill Germano (51:40):
my Unsurprisingly, I remember a lot of the people
from 1978 in Columbia because itwas my first serious job. Well,
I think Doug, you got off thehook really easily. There's
nothing here that's actionable.Slightly disappointed in all of
you.
Lisa Bayer (51:59):
Dean has not spoken yet. Are you sitting on
something, Dean?
Dean Smith (52:03):
Just he was the first outside of the Hopkins. I
was at Hopkins, went to the SaltLake meeting and Doug came out
of the hotel and we walked to anindependent bookstore together.
And that was where I got to knowhim. I just was thankful because
I didn't really know anybodyelse outside of my colleagues at
Hopkins. So thank you.
Doug Armato (52:19):
The bookstore browse is my kind of icebreaker.
Greg Britton (52:22):
I just want to say, Doug, thank you very much.
You've been an amazing colleaguefor decades and an absolute
pleasure to have in our lives. Ilook forward to seeing what you
do next.
Doug Armato (52:37):
I'm curious myself.
Greg Britton (52:39):
I think it's going to involve lots of long road
trips and time in Hayward.
Doug Armato (52:44):
Yep, no doubt about it. I really do love this
profession and this business.The people that, you know, we
we've all worked with togetherhave just been terrific people
to get to know. And I stillremember when my our godson,
Beckett, he's a broker, said tome, let me get this straight. So
all day you sit at a desk andyou read books.
(53:05):
And I said, yeah, that'sbasically what the job is. He
says, and then you go home andyou read books. And I said,
yeah, that's basically what Ido. Basically, it's it's just
been the perfect career.
Lisa Bayer (53:18):
Yep. Yep.
Doug Armato (53:20):
Well, great to be able to enjoy this moment with
all of you, even if by digitalmeans.
Bill Germano (53:27):
Well, on that note, I'd like to thank all of
you for taking time for yourinsights and your stories
incriminating otherwise. AndDoug, congratulations once again
from your colleagues, yourfriends, and maybe most of all,
from your grateful authors. Andif you don't know what to do
with all that new time on yourhands, you can always write a
(53:49):
book.
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