In "U of New Mexico Press Downsizes," Rachel Deahl reports that the University of New Mexico Press is cutting jobs, and it may outsource warehouse/customer service operations to cope with a 20% sales decline.

Read more about it at “Most. Revealing. Press Release. Ever“; “UNM Press Announces Reorganization“; and “UNM Press to Fire Three Employees.”

According to “Harvard Press Sales Down,” Mary Kate Maco, Publicity Director at Harvard University Press, believes that sales at the press may have “declined similarly to the national average of 10 percent calculated by the American Association of University Presses.”

The Research Information Network has released Scholarly Books and Journals at Risk: Responding to the Challenges of a Changing Economy

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The current economic difficulties across the globe bring serious risks to scholarly books and journals. In the UK, the recent dramatic fall in the value of sterling has seriously damaged university library purchasing budgets.

This briefing note aims to inform and motivate all key stakeholders—universities, funding bodies, researchers, librarians, and publishers—to work together to find creative, practical and sustainable solutions to this serious (and unforeseen) challenge to the vitality of the UK’s research base.

OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) has launched a newsletter, sending the first issue out as a message on the SPARC-OAForum list.

Here's an excerpt:

First meeting of the Scientific Board

The OAPEN project has installed two external bodies (External stakeholder Group and Scientific Board) to ensure that the needs of scholars, publishers, funders and universities are met by the project's findings and developments. The Scientific Board of OAPEN consists of several international renowned scholars known for their expertise in publishing. Among them are scholars promoting Open Access such as Jean Claude Guédon (University of Montreal) or Gerhard Lauer (University of Göttingen), publishers and editors making electronic publishing come true like Charles Henry (Rice University Press) or Siggi Jöttkandt (Open Humanities Press), but also representatives from funders and university associations like Sarah Porter (JISC) and Sijbolt Noorda (EUA).

The first meeting constituted the Scientific Board as an active part of OAPEN. The board members will serve as a consulting and inspiring body for OAPEN during the funding period and hopefully beyond. Conclusions from the first board meeting were for instance to account for widespread conservative publishing attitudes among HSS scholars and at the same time the need to promote new modes of publishing such as more fluid media forms. The board members emphasised the importance of publisher-organised quality control and Open Access experiments for the mentioned fields and encouraged the project partners to conduct OAPEN as planned

.

The American Enterprise Institute has released Professors on the Production Line, Students on Their Own by Mark Bauerlein.

Here's an excerpt:

Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University and former director of the Office of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, examines the pressure on humanities professors to "publish publish publish" and explains why the abundance of research offers diminishing returns. He laments the consequences for undergraduate education and student engagement and suggests that students, faculty, and the broader society would be well-served if we revisited this aged and problematic compact. . . .

Read more about it at "Unread Monographs, Uninspired Undergrads."

Because of an "unfavorable $35 million foreign exchange impact," John Wiley & Sons' fiscal year 2009 third quarter Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (STMS) revenue was down 13% to $202 million; however, on a "currency neutral basis," revenue grew 2%. (Wiley's fiscal year runs from May 1 to April 30.)

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Journal subscription revenue was on par with prior year, as revenue from new journals was partially offset by the aforementioned processing delays and lower backfile sales. STMS book sales improved in markets outside the US. Publishing areas that exhibited significant growth include the life sciences, professional, and the social sciences and humanities.

The journal subscription renewal delays were related to the consolidation of Wiley and Blackwell fulfillment systems and licensing practices, which is the last significant integration project and one of the most complex undertakings in the overall process. While the problems that caused the delays were substantially resolved by the end of the quarter, some of the processing backlog remained. Approximately $7 million of revenue on yet-to-be processed customer journal licenses will be earned in the fourth quarter. The delays also affected cash collections through January. . . .

For the first nine months of fiscal year 2009, global STMS revenue was flat with prior year at $696 million, but advanced 6%, excluding unfavorable foreign exchange. Contributing to the year-over-year growth was a $17 million acquisition accounting adjustment related to the Blackwell acquisition that reduced revenue in the comparable prior year period, as well as increased journal revenue. All regions exhibited growth. Direct contribution to profit for the first nine months rose 4% to $277 million, or 10% excluding unfavorable foreign exchange. The increase reflects higher journal subscription revenue and prudent expense management, partially offset by editorial costs associated with new journals and the aforementioned delay in journal subscription renewals.

Wiley's FY 2008 results are summarized in its "John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reports Record Revenue and Earnings in Fiscal Year 2008" press release.

As part of a thematic issue on open access, The Journal of Electronic Publishing has published a paper by John Willinsky titled "Toward the Design of an Open Monograph Press."

Here's the abstract:

This paper reviews and addresses the critical issues currently confronting monograph publishing as a matter of reduced opportunities for scholars to pursue book-length projects. In response, it proposes an alternative approach to monograph publishing based on a modular design for an online system that would foster, manage, and publish monographs in digital and print forms using open source software developments, drawn from journal publishing, and social networking technologies that might contribute to not only to the sustainability of monograph publishing but to the quality of the resulting books.

Reed Elsevier has released "Reed Elsevier Preliminary Results 2008." For the Elsevier division alone, revenue increased to 1,700 million pounds from 1,507 million pounds in 2007 and adjusted operating profit increased to 568 million pounds from 477 million pounds in 2007. Notes indicated that performance factors included "Record subscription renewals, growing online sales, successful publishing; weak pharma." The Elsevier division accounted for 39% of Reed Elsevier's 2008 adjusted operating profit. (Thanks to The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics.)

According to the Wall Street Journal, at yesterday's exchange rate one U.K. pound equalled 1.4426 U.S. dollars.

SAGE has released Meeting the Challenges: Societies and Scholarly Communication (Thanks to Adrian K. Ho's Digital & Scholarly: News about Research and Scholarship in the Digital Age.)

Here's an excerpt:

The survey was supported by the Association for Learned Professional and Scholarly Publishers; the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers; the International Association for Science, Technical and Medical Publishers, and the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, and made available to the 600+ members of these organizations.

The online survey of 30 questions was available for response from 2 September, 2008 – 23 September, 2008.

118 responses were completed during this time—reflecting approximately 19% of the organizations contacted.

Societies cited the major challenges facing them as international presence for their organization; membership retention and growth; provision of online services; resources (funding and income); and Open Access. International presence was the most highly-ranked attribute for societies (49%), with particular importance placed on sales representation on a global scale.

The Columbia University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Program has released "Future of the Book: Can the Endangered Monograph Survive?," a digital video of the meeting of the same name. (Thanks to Adrian K. Ho of Digital & Scholarly: News about Research and Scholarship in the Digital Age.)

Here's the abstract:

Panelists Helen Tartar, Editorial Director at Fordham University Press; Sanford Thatcher, Director of Penn State University Press and past President of the Association of American University Presses; and Ree DeDonato, Director of Humanities and History and Acting Director of Union Theological Seminary's Burke Library of Columbia University Libraries/Information Services discuss the economics and process of scholarly publishing and the future of the monograph. Columbia's Deputy University Librarian and Associate Vice President for Digital Programs and Technology Services Patricia Renfro introduces the panel, which is followed by a question-and-answer session.