Bulletin Number Two 1985

The Chinese University Press: Exploring New Possibilities by T.L, Tsim At a certain stage in a university's development, the need for its own publishing house will become apparent. When a growing number of academics see a need for the publication of their research findings and when the result of these research efforts can no longer be adequately dealt with in the form of academic papers, the establishment of a university press to publish, in book form, works of academic merit will be a logical development. At The Chinese University of Hong Kong, such a point was reached in 1977, fourteen years after the University first came into being. Hitherto, the publication activities of the University had been taken care of by the Publications Office. While the decision to establish a Chinese University Press was straight-forward and taken without difficulty, the task of giving effect to such a decision was by no means easy. Two major problems confronted the University Press in the early days and these are still with us today, albeit in a somewhat diminishing scale, thanks mainly to the efforts of Mr. Richard Lai, former Director of the Press, and thanks also to the guidance that was given him by the Senate Committee on University Press, whose Chairman is the Vice-Chancellor. The two problems in question are the problem of selection and the problem of finance. Naturally, the two are not unrelated in that inadequate financial resources will almost preclude the publication of some very worthy but highly specialized academic books of very limited appeal. I use the word 'almost' advisedly because we, The Chinese University Press, do publish a number of books which must be judged to be in this category. And we would like to be able to do more if we could. As an academic publisher, we should really only be guided by two principles in considering whether or not to publish a manuscript. These are: firstly, whether the manuscript is a work of academic merit, and secondly, whether its publication will be a credit to the University, bearing in mind its special character and strengths. Unfortunately, economic realities being what they are, The Chinese University Press, like many academic publishers all over the world, has had to introduce a third consideration, and that is whether the manuscript in question is likely to be well received in the book market. We do not insist that a book has to do spectacularly well in terms of sales volume, but neither can we go on publishing books which only sell fifty copies. I am happy to say that these cases are now few and far between. The finances of The Chinese University Press today are better than at any time in the past. The Revolving Fund which was established in 1978 as a separate account with a capital of $300,000 to finance our publishing activities has grown to $2,316,116 at the end of the last financial year. This Fund is a good indicator of the state of health of the University Press as all costs, with the exception of salaries, are charged to this account and all sales income is ploughed back into it. If the Revolving Fund is on the increase, as it has been doing in the last four years, it means The Chinese University Press has managed to produce academic books which sell reasonably well in the market. To return to the problem of selection, it is clear that the editorial staff at The Chinese University Press should not be in a position to judge whether a manuscript has academic merit, the publication of which will bring credit to the University. The responsibility for this is vested with the Editorial Sub- Committee of the Senate Committee on University Press, which in turn is answerable to the Senate. In practice, even the Editorial Sub-Committee does not feel it is competent to sit in judgment of every manuscript that has been submitted to it and so, outside scholars or specialists in their respective fields are called upon to read the manuscripts and give an evaluation on each. Based on the reader's comments, the Editorial Sub-Committee will decide whether to accept or reject a manuscript. Normally, every manuscript RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 17