Rice Press To Go Online-Only

Will offer free access, plus print-on-demand services

By Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 8/15/2006

Rice University Press (RUP), Houston, TX, which closed at the end of 1996, has announced that it will resume operations as a digital publisher. The effort will be led through its start-up phase by Charles Henry, Rice University vice provost, university librarian, and now publisher of RUP.

Henry said the decision to revive the press as a digital enterprise was based on both economics and “new ways of thinking” about scholarly publishing. “On the one hand, university presses are losing money at unprecedented rates, and technology offers us ways to decrease production costs and provide a nearly ubiquitous delivery system, the Internet,” Henry said. The new press will operate much like the old one and like most other presses: manuscripts will be solicited, reviewed, edited, and approved by an editorial board of prominent scholars. Yet rather than printing books, RUP will use technology provider Connexions to prepare the materials for publication, as well as create hi-res images, audio, and video.

Users will be able to access press content online for free, or they can purchase a copy of the book for download through the RUP web site in a variety of formats. Print-on-demand services, also through Connexions, include options for paper, binding, and more. In another break from common practice, authors will retain copyright of their works through Connexions' licensing agreement with Creative Commons. As Connexions is open source, authors can also freely update or amend their own work (see cnx.org).

Of course, many questions remain. RUP has yet to name a board of directors or an editorial board. Revenue projections are up in the air, but, Henry said, “it's safe to say our start-up costs and annual operating expenses will be at least ten times less than what we'd expect to pay if we were using a traditional publishing model.”