The Demise of the University of Missouri Press

Timothy M. Wolfe, the president of the University of Missouri, announced last Thursday that the university will be shutting down its press and laying off the ten people who work there.

Provost Brian Foster explained that the university is hoping to find new ways to invest in scholarly communication: "Technological changes have turned media up on their head, and that's turning scholarly communication on its head," he said. "It's more than publishing a book; it's a much broader change. Communication," he said, is "central to successful research, but given how the system is in such fundamental change, we just don't know where it's going." Wouldn't it be better to wait and consider ways adapt the press to these technological changes than to do away with it?

My immediate concern was who would have possession of UMP books after the closure, who will help with the marketing of recently published books, and who will write royalties checks for my fellow UMP authors and me. But the more I sit with this news, the more troubled I am about the wider implications. Here are just a few of the titles in the fall 2012 catalogue: From Missouri: An American Farmer Looks Back a memoir by Thad Snow; Play Me Something Quick and Devilish: Old-Time Fiddlers in Missouri by Howard-Wight Marshall (I'm ordering this one!); and Strong Advocate: The Life of a Trail Lawyer, by Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri's history. Where will those doing scholarship on such topics go to publish their work? Will the loss of this venue discourage folks from researching Missouri history and culture? 

Please write to Tim Wolfe and let him know he needs to rescind his order to close the press:

Office of the President
321 University Hall
Columbia, MO 65211
Telephone: (573) 882-2011

Email: umpresident@umsystem.edu

Where else?

Where do you go if you want to find essays about Zerelda Cole James Samuel, the mother of Jesse James, once declared the meanest woman in Missouri; Omaha's Indie rocker Conor Oberst; the monster catfish that lives beneath the bridge near Burlington, Iowa; the Nauvoo, Illinois, home-life of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith; the good work of Deb Echo-Hawk of the Pawnee Seeds Preservation Project; dancing sandhill cranes; young Charlie Parker playing a pawnshop saxophone in Kansas City; plenty of Lewis & Clark; the courageous work of whistle-blower Dr. Fardin Oliaei, the Rachel Carson of the Upper Mississippi; the winner of the 1946 Button Queen contest in Muscatine, Iowa (Ronald Reagen was the contest judge!); and a road trip with my feisty mother, all within the covers of a single book? You go to Lisa Knopp's What the River Carries: Encounters with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte.

A Giveaway

Want a free, autographed copy of my new book? Please tell me in a sentence or two why I should choose to give the copy to you. I'll announce the winner on June 15th.

Summer reading

I just got back from the library. Here's what I'm reading during the early weeks of my summer break: Joan Didion's Blue Nights and Janisse Ray's Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, two memoirs that have long been on my must-read list; Eric Klinenberg's Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone and Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, two books of general nonfiction that are already arguing with each other.

The next book -- your feedback is welcome

The early, early stage of a new book is a wonderful and frustrating time. Everything is possible; yet, I don't have enough written to know if the project will fly. My particular challenge this summer break is that I have two book projects in mind. One is a collection of spiritual-autobiographical essays. Last Wednesday, one of these essays was accepted by a good quarterly (oh, yes! I'm on the right track) and one was rejected by another good quarterly (maybe I'm not). The other project I have in mind requires courage and a lot of gas money, since I want to travel to "intentional communities"* and see how they work. This will involve interviewing, hanging out, and taking lots of notes as I attend potlucks, financial meetings, and pull weeds in communal gardens. I welcome your thoughts on either of these projects.

*the dictionary defines an intentional community as "a community designed and planned around a social ideal or collective values and interests, often involving shared resources and responsibilities." 

Update on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 1:34PM by webmaster

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