“A Manifesto for Scholarly Publishing”, over at the U.S. Chronicle of Higher Education (12th Jun 09)…

“the first key to a stronger and more vital university press is in the embrace of a broader array of fields, notably the professions, including medicine; engineering; computer, environmental, information, and management sciences; graphic design; and finance. [ all of which ] are often seen as peripheral to the humanities-centered core mission of universities, and to the heavily humanities-oriented program of university presses.”

“While naysayers may argue that publishing more books on the professions subverts the university press’s historical commitment to the humanities and culture, one could counter that those professional fields are themselves coming to define culture. Think of the growing influence on society of fields such as telecommunications, financial engineering, and cognitive science, as well as the increasingly ubiquitous influence of statistics and applied mathematics in everyday communications.”