OUP closes its printing arm

[Parasaurolophus]

I thought this might be of interest to some of you.

From The Guardian:

The closure of Oxuniprint, which will take place on 27 August subject to consultation with employees, will result in the loss of 20 jobs. OUP said it follows a "continued decline in sales", which has been "exacerbated by factors relating to the pandemic".

[mamselle]

Whoa.

i wonder how Cambridge Univ. Press (i.e., the one on the same island) is doing?

M.

[downer]

I tried to find out where most books are now published, but didn't see any info. Tempting to think it is mostly in China, but are there still significant printing presses in the UK and USA?

[jerseyjay]

I found this article in the NYT interesting, about book printing in the US:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/books/printing-companies-backlog-book-publishing.html

[hmaria1609]

That stinks!  I had the fun of visiting the OUP Bookstore in Oxford too. I have a nice leather bookmark from there as a souvenir.

[downer]

That stinks!  I had the fun of visiting the OUP Bookstore in Oxford too. I have a nice leather bookmark from there as a souvenir.

It sucks for the people at the printers, but it won't make any difference to everyone else. The bookstore isn't going anywhere.

[Parasaurolophus]

That stinks!  I had the fun of visiting the OUP Bookstore in Oxford too. I have a nice leather bookmark from there as a souvenir.

It sucks for the people at the printers, but it won't make any difference to everyone else. The bookstore isn't going anywhere.

I wouldn't be surprised if the quality drops somewhat. You don't have the same kind of oversight and control when work is outsourced far, far away.

The copy editing at OUP, for instance, is highly variable these days.