The University of Melbourne’s decision to neuter its publishing arm, Melbourne University Publishing, has come as a surprise to those who worked on a review of the publisher.
Yesterday, longstanding CEO of MUP Louise Adler and five board members quit the university press over a University of Melbourne decision to shift its focus to scholarly works and install an editorial advisory board.
Sandy Grant, CEO of Melbourne publisher Hardie Grant, was invited to review Melbourne University Publishing by the university last year, and told Crikey he wasn’t sure what the shift in focus was based on. The report he contributed to recommended more digital opportunities for academics to publish their work.
The review was intended to look at ways to get a closer link between the academic community and the university press amid tension between MUP and the university administration, Grant said.
“The last thing I saw was that there was going to be a focus on introducing a wider range of digital opportunities for academics to be published as opposed to getting rid of general publishing entirely,” Grant said. “There may have been an implication that there should be more of a focus on academic publishing but nothing was meant to be shut down.”
“It was fairly clear that (University of Melbourne chancellor) Allan Myers was unhappy with some of the publishing and, in particular, the George Pell book and that brought things to a head and that brought on the review.”
MUP published ABC journalist Louise Milligan’s book Cardinal about former cardinal George Pell in 2017.
Grant, who was once Adler’s boss at Reed Books, echoed the sentiments of many others online yesterday, saying Adler had found and published books that wouldn’t have otherwise ever been written.
“Louise has done a lot of important publishing. She’s certainly created a lot of energy and attention to political and social issues,” he said. “She can convince someone who hadn’t considered doing a book that they should, and then get it out of them. She had a great skill that people in the industry call being able to ‘Adlerise’. That’s what will be missed by the industry.”
Under Adler, MUP published Tony Abbott’s Battlelines, The Latham Diaries, and Mick Gatto’s autobiography.
Grant said Adler’s personal style and talent for finding and publishing books had given the university a public visibility which had been a priority for former vice chancellor Glyn Davis. “The university under Glyn Davis was happy to have that visibility and prominence in public debate,” Grant said. “He was happy for them to be in amongst the big issues of our time. Obviously there’s been a change of the guard, with different priorities, who don’t value as Glyn did the university being a loud voice in public debate.”
Chairman Laurie Muller and five directors — former NSW premier Bob Carr, former human rights commissioner Gillian Triggs, PwC partner Tony Peake and entrepreneur Danny Gorog — also resigned yesterday. Carr told The Australian the new model was not “viable”. “It leaves a board like ours with no contribution to make,” Carr said.
Muller told Guardian Australia the changes would include the appointment of an editorial advisory board, separate to the main board, editors and publisher. “And you can argue that that is a great restriction on the freedom of publishing,” he said.
Adler did not respond to Crikey’s request for comment by deadline.
I suspect there is a gap in Australian commercial publishing but I am not convinced that gap should be filled by a university press. I would prefer Melbourne University Press to concentrate on scholarly monographs and leave the trade books to trade publishers.
Yes, the ‘Academic’ category in their catalogue is only one of many – that also includes ‘Design and Lifestyle’, ‘Travel’, ‘Cookery’. One could be so cruel as to suggest that the developments at MUP mirror pretty well the progress of the higher ed sector over the last few decades – with the relentless commercialising and dumbing down of so many things.
When the dust and bodies have settled there is an interesting discussion to be had about the role of university presses in general and MUP in particular. Possibly that was behind the university’s decision to commission Sandy Grant’s review last year, though I don’t know the terms of reference.
Louise Adler has certainly published some significant books in her time at MUP but she could have done that working for any commercial publisher, assuming they were profitable titles. There is no obvious reason for a university to run a commercial general publishing business any more than it should run a commercial legal or medical practice. The bookstore that used to be part of MUP (and some would say generated the profit that balanced the publishing losses) got outsourced years ago.
The old argument for a university press was to make available important academic works, consistent with the university’s role as a cornerstone of educated society, maintaining traditions of scholarship, keeping alight the beacon of knowledge, etc etc, but even that seems dubious in the digital age.
PS My comment wasn’t meant to be semi-anonymous
Is there any reason for a university press not to run a commercially successful side business ? Enough of this quarantining certain activities to private enterprise. Let private publishers compete not seek refuge.
No reason at all. As with any business it’s up to the owners i.e. the university. Not sure we can call it a side business though since the trade list far outweighs the academic. And it’s not a question of quarantining nor of seeking refuge.
I think university presses still have an important role in keeping alight the beacon of knowledge in the digital age. As book publishers keep reminding us, the paper, printing, distribution and warehousing costs of hard copy publishing are only about 35% of the total costs of publishing. Scholarly monographs are mostly bought only by academic libraries these days, and their acquisition of scholarly monographs have fallen greatly over the last 15 years.
I think universities should subsidise their presses which should publish open access as part of their broader role to disseminate knowledge and particularly the results of their research. I consider this much more valuable than the numerous glossy mags they produce.
I think ANU Press has a good policy. It distributes its titles on line for free and charges for hard copy impressions, many of which are printed and bound on demand at your local campus bookstore. I gather it recovers much of its costs from print sales, but I’d be surprised if it weren’t also supported by a substantial grant from the university.
I recall Adler being a vociferous opponent of open access publishing, presumably reflecting her commercial background and inclination, and scornful of ANU Press as a publishing ingenue.
Burning the books always early move of fascist leaders.
The Wikipedia entry for the VC’s bio may explain his response to Milligan’s book. Maybe somebody could do a scholarly paper on Pell rather than some investigative journalist and see if that works for the VC’s desire for academic rigor.
An objective of the MUP would surely be that is it financially self supporting, bit like the uni itself in accepting swags of non English speaking students who pay lots of lovely fees. (In the meantime, mucking up our housing availability/affordability and clogging up our roads, but that is another discussion.)
It is hard to see that MUP will be financially viable in only publishing scholarly works, which it has been very successfully under Louise Adler.
More a personal thing I think, seeing as the new boss Allan Myers is a mate of George pell’s, and his lawyer apparently.
Whether it should be self-supporting depends what its role is. Same goes for the university itself, but that has been determined by successive governments for many years now.