Smithsonian Institutes a Leaner Approach

David Glenn gives Chronicle of Higher Education readers an account of the bumpy ride of Smithsonian Books, which, after years of losing money, chose to align itself with HarperCollins. Glenn’s story focuses on a number of authors whose works were unceremoniously dropped from circulation when Smithsonian selected a core list of roughly 250 books it wanted to keep publishing. The problem is that several of the jettisoned titles could not, due to contractual obligation, be remaindered—but until they sort that out, university presses are having a field day picking up some other treasures from the backlist.

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