Rice University in the US has announced its decision to close the recently revitalised Rice University Press in September 2010. The press was closed once before in 1996. It was reborn in 2006 as an all-digital operation. According to a statement by Eugene Levy, a Rice professor of astrophysics who stepped down as the university's provost in June, the press has proven too expensive to sustain even in its new form.
Book sales remained very slow, and projections discouraged the anticipation that revenues would, in the foreseeable future, grow to a level that could materially cover even minimal costs of operations, according to the library. Combined with pressures on the university budget from the broad fiscal crisis of recent years, the university concluded that it could not continue indefinite subsidy of the RUP experiment.
The Rice press relied on Connexions, the university's online, open-source environment for creating and publishing scholarly content, as its e-publishing platform. Levy's statement indicated that Rice books are likely to remain available through Connexions.
While final details are still being worked out, the plan is to give authors of books published by RUP the option to have their work continue to be posted and sold through Connexions, the ex-provost said.
The Association of American University Presses has expressed its disappointment on the decision. According to the association, digital technologies, formats and delivery platforms are a growing part of every university press's endeavours. Further, it expressed its gratitude for all that the scholarly publishing community has learned from the Rice model.
