Should book publishing be all about profit? The success of OUP, despite its elitism, suggests notOUP is one of Britain's truly great institutions, up there, or nearly, with the NHS and the BBC. As in these other cases, its modern history has been largely dominated by the struggle to preserve its high ideals and standards against the tide of commercialism. As its secretary (chief executive) put it in 1954: "The essence of the Press is that it is not a business."That is one of the two main themes running through this, the third volume of what is presumably its official history. The other is OUP's spread into the world from 1896 (when its New York office was founded). This suggests that, whatever the outcome of the battle over commercialisation, it didn't damage OUP greatly. In 1970, when this volume ends, it was not only the largest, most diverse and most respected university press in the world, but one of the main agents of British cultural imperialism (in the nicest possible sense), after the formal British empire wearily relinquished that role in the 1960s.On the surface, this seems extraordinary. For the whole of the 20th century, OUP has been notorious for its antediluvian structure, its vague relationship with Oxford University (of which it is technically a "department"), its governance by a board of academic "delegates", and a "finance committee" that deliberately excluded anyone with business knowledge. It has been widely criticised for its secrecy and cliquishness;... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]