Douglas Armato, the fifth director in the University of Minnesota Press's 100-year history, will soon retire after 27 years of leadership at the Press—following an almost-50-year career in book publishing. On the occasion of this milestone event, he unites several titans of university publishing in a tremendous conversation about change and comradeship, past progress and future speculation, and persistent through it all, an abiding passion for what is at the core of this work: books. Gathered with Armato are Lisa Bayer, director of University of Georgia Press; Greg Britton, editorial director at Johns Hopkins University Press; Jennifer Crewe, associate provost and director of Columbia University Press; and Dean Smith, director of Duke University Press; in a conversation moderated by Bill Germano, professor of English at Cooper Union. Access a transcript of this conversation: https://share.transistor.fm/s/5c6c6e92

More about Armato's acquisitions, collaborations, and retirement news: z.umn.edu/DA27.
More about the Press's 100-year history and influence: z.umn.edu/wordfactory100.
This is a University of Minnesota Press production. Thank you for listening.

Episode chapters:

02:30: What has scholarly publishing gained, and what has it lost, since we started in the business?
05:08: Side hustles to sustain the bottom line.
10:02: Are university presses and university libraries still close allies?
17:52: How is the outside world meant to understand what a university press does?
22:45: It's a job for hopeless romantics willing to fall in love with ideas (and not necessarily ones you even like).
28:40: Whither AI? How is the AI tsunami different from or similar to past massive paradigm changes for publishing, such as the Internet and e-books?
35:22: In a world of e-books, does a book need to go out of print? Should books go out of print?
41:00: What is the ideal role for scholarly publishers with regard to tenure decisions?
48:24: Memories and anecdotes about working with Doug Armato.