ABSTRACT
Many of the historical motivations for the founding of university press journals in the sciences have been diminished by advances in other sectors of publishing. Future prospects for this sector can be undercut by certain weaknesses that are still occasionally found. One is part-time management by full-time academics, another is some lack of sympathy or expertise in handling scientific materials on the part of professional managers. Nonetheless, a number of today’s university-based journals are quite successful and offer price advantages over titles from for-profit houses. Financially pressed librarians promoting a revival of university science journals should realize that in order for these new journals to be economically viable and responsive to their scientific audiences, their managements – like the managements of successful science journals from other sectors – would probably have to make some choices that would make them less popular with librarians.
