by Brian Cole

Academic publishing. One might think the entire system has broken down. The Internet is filled with articles and Weblogs (blogs) that bemoan the fact that quality scholarship often goes unpublished. With 44,000-plus newly-minted Ph.D.s each year, many of whom invade campuses to try to climb the tenure ladder, the competition to have one’s work published is fierce. So where do part-timers fit in? Is it even more difficult for those who hold part-time faculty appointments to find publishers for their scholarship and research?

According to Cathy N. Davidson, vice provost for interdisciplinary studies, co-founder of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, and a professor of English at Duke University, in her article “Understanding the Economic Burden of Scholarly Publishing” printed in the October 3, 2003 issue of The Chronicle Review, the crisis in scholarly publishing is real, “and it signals a major threat to scholarly communication as we know it.” The focus of her essay revolves around the financial decline of the university press, the center of academic publishing. In the essay, she identifies several theories. They include the aforementioned tie between book publishing and tenure, the rise of chain bookstores and electronic booksellers, and the jargon of post-modern critical theory shrinking the audience for the humanities, among many others.

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