IN 1878, Johns Hopkins University’s first president, Daniel Coit Gilman, founded the Johns Hopkins Publication Agency to publish important material for scholars and the public outside of the academy. “It is one of the noblest duties of a university to advance knowledge and to diffuse it not merely among those who can attend the daily lectures,” said Gilman, “but far and wide.” Gilman was onto something: Nearly one hundred fifty years later, Johns Hopkins University Press—the oldest continuously operating university press in the United States—is just one of over 120 American university presses striving to enlighten readers everywhere. But the conglomeration of the publishing industry and evolving reader habits have significantly changed the U.S. commercial book economy over the past few decades, and university presses now serve even broader roles…
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Poets & Writers (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2023