Richard W. Clement

Library and University Press Integration: A New Vision for University Publishing

ABSTRACT American university presses are struggling to maintain their core mission to publish scholarly monographs. Several presses have closed and almost all are struggling. Presses have tried various editorial tactics and new publishing strategies to keep afloat, but the larger economic situation has continued to erode their ability to succeed. In the face of what appears to be insurmountable impediments, some university presses have turned to university libraries as natural partners in the enterprise of distributing scholarship and research. Though these two entities have differing business models, partnerships have much to offer each, and integrating the press into the library organization and aligning its business plan with the librarys plan offer a viable solution to the crisis of contemporary university publishing. Library/press integrations have the potential to be extraordinarily significant in the future development of publishing in this area. This article first reviews the history of university presses in the United States, then considers the nature of the challenge now facing presses to succeed, and finally offers a new model for press and library integration as exemplified in such a merger at Utah State University.

Cataloging Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts: A Review Article

Until recently it could have been argued with much justification that the cataloging of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States began and ended with Seymour De Riccis Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1935-40) and Supplement (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1962). Of course, many excellent catalogs were produced before the Census and have been produced since (although most are of a specialized nature), yet the Census and its Supplement must be regarded as the one great landmark in cataloging in this country. It was the first, and so far is the only, union catalog of all the medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada, and it has undoubtedly stimulated primary scholarship by bringing many unknown or unnoticed manuscripts to general notice. Yet at the same time the Census has discouraged cataloging at individual institutions. Invariably the further cataloging of manuscripts already listed in the Census receives the lowest priority: it simply is not done. The cataloging of manuscripts acquired since the publication of the Supplement to the Census (1962) has