Publishing

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. -- From virtually every angle, professors are under pressure to be more productive. Pressure to publish, to earn and keep tenure. Pressure to present at conferences, to prove to their employers their visibility and viability in their disciplines.

Northwest Missouri State U., which rents books to students, experiments with electronic formats, with ambitions to go digital as publishers do.

Fears of Utah State University's scholarly publishing arm illustrate the vulnerability of academic publishing in a year of massive budget cuts.

Wiley-Blackwell suspends sale of four volume, 3,000 page encyclopedia on Christianity, pending post-publication review. Editor sees anti-religious bias; publisher and others see major problems with the substance of the work.

Entire scholarly books are starting to appear -- without permission -- on Web sites that flaunt their violation of traditional copyright laws.

Composition scholars consider whether their language and tone alienate the public -- or raise tough issues.

Increased scholarly output and student disengagement are linked, according to a new white paper that calls for relieving the "research mandate" in the humanities.

U. of Michigan Press plans dramatic move in scholarly publishing, shifting to a digital model -- with hopes of being able to increase production of important, non-commercial research.

As Amazon unveils new version of its Kindle reader and underscores implications for electronic textbooks, perceptions vary on whether step is transformative.

Middlebury wants to end financial support for New England Review. Supporters of literary magazines say college demands like that could doom vital publications.