Should Government Publish Books?

The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party currently controls the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Many state programs anxiously await their fates as they are paraded across the chopping block in the name of budgetary reform. The legislature will vote thumbs up or down on whether to eliminate seventy low-budget programs in April.

In addition to the seventy programs Kentucky Governor Bevin proposes to cut, many of which affect education and children, Governor Bevin has proposed a 6% cut to public higher education and most other state functions. I see the cuts as part of larger efforts nationwide to under-fund public education and other public services at all levels. We in public higher education will need to keep learning to do more with less, just as grade school teachers have done for so many years.

One institution unsure about its future is University Press of Kentucky, an innovator in publishing for seventy-five years. Instead of individual universities in the Commonwealth launching their own presses, we have one serving most of them—all of the public universities and most of the private ones. University Press of Kentucky focuses on local writers and regional stories. The press does an excellent job producing a bit over fifty books per year, many to great acclaim. Its books have won twelve Frederick Jackson Turner awards for the best first book by an author in American history.

The University Press of Kentucky has maintained its editorial independence. The Director, Leila Salisbury, is savvy, smart and thoughtful. Somewhere I read that the Press’ small staff of sixteen produced and sold $4 million worth of books last year. It needs a state subsidy of $672,000 to do what it does. Presses like these insure that charming and educational books that probably would not get looked at or picked up by the big national and international presses still see the light of day. 

The Tea Party is shrinking the category of services considered worthy of any public support. As someone formerly sympathetic to Libertarian thought and still concerned with insuring free inquiry of current and historical events, I understand a healthy mistrust of government. But, the reality is that our society is too complex to hope that for-profit and not-for-profit private initiatives will fulfill society’s great needs. And, I feel a need for society to be more than just functional. I believe there is an almost universal human need for exploring ideas, science, art, music and more.

Do we need university presses? Is the preservation and dissemination of information produced at a state’s universities worth the cost? Of course, I think so, but in a climate obsessed with educational assessment and valuing all things in terms of financial impact, university presses in red states have reason to worry. University of Missouri Press just fought off an attempt to shutter it to eliminate its $400,000 annual subsidy. For the Tea Party, publishing books simply isn’t the role of government. 

Those wanting to shrink government and eliminate university presses will point to how easy self-publishing is today. The impact of writing, however, is in the dissemination of the ideas expressed to an audience—now or in the future. It is the rare self-published book that finds a significant audience. Shutting university presses stymies the impact of research and undermines the purpose of scholarship in public institutions. 

To someone viewing universities solely as institutions to train students efficiently for jobs in the private sector, public funding of scholarship has no appeal. I think that is short-sighted and preordains that a full-time professor’s knowledge will be outdated in a short amount of time. Perhaps in the long run, many public four-year institutions will become more like junior colleges. Professors (or, more realistically—adjuncts) teach the nuts and bolts without producing scholarship--and try to magically keep up what's happening out in the "real world." As someone who loves to both teach and write, such a model does not much appeal to me personally. I’d probably re-enter the private sector to litigate, which I also love (and miss doing at the level I used to), rather than become that sort of professor. (Please understand that I'm not trying to disparage junior college professors or grade school teachers here, who play an incredibly important role in society.) 

Of course, political winds shift, and these Tea Party developments could be reversed in the next administration. But, I’m feeling a bit depressed as I worry about whether the publisher I chose for my book will be around next year. I'm sticking with it to the (possible) end, because I believe in its mission and its people. I'm simply wallowing here for a few minutes, before I create more videos to help my students understand Recording Acts. I love helping them do it. I also love helping them become critically thinking public citizens, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. 

Now, I shall wrap up my wallowing and invite you to pick up the torch. Are we leaving a Renaissance for another Dark Age? What will higher ed will look like for the crop of students currently in school districts banning To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Will they ever be encouraged to read Fahrenheit 451? Will they be conditioned to believe that education is about nothing more than job training? Where do you think we’re headed in twenty or fifty years? Will government starve higher education to the point that membership in various accrediting agencies requiring scholarship will no longer be a priority? Will the scholarship function shrivel and die except at the most prestigious institutions for whom the market will pay for their brand name? Do you think that's the way it should be? Alternatively, do you think that level of centralization and potential uniformity of trained, critical thought is a sad development or perhaps even dangerous? 

I'd love to hear your thoughts, thought experiments and even wallowing in the comments.