University presses play an important role in scholarly communication, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Yet in Australia, little has been written about them in the last decade. I recently conducted a mapping study of university presses in Australia, and looked at who’s active, what they publish, and how they are structured. The full paper is now available on Figshare.
In total, I identified nine active university presses out of the 42 Australian universities. While this is a small number, it’s not insignificant given our population and higher education size. These presses operate under quite different models. Some are units within university libraries, others are standalone companies owned by universities, and a few have commercial partnerships.
What’s most interesting from a library perspective is that five of the nine active presses are now housed within their university libraries and there is some collaboration between libraries and presses. Libraries are not just buyers of academic books, but also producers and supporters of publishing.
Here’s a snapshot of the nine active university presses in Australia, including their organisational placement:
| Publisher | Start | Focus | # titles in 2023, 2024 | Formats | Org structure |
| Australian National University Press | 2003 | Scholarly | 32, 28 | Book | Under library |
| La Trobe University Press | 2010 | Scholarly | 9, 7 | Book | joint imprint of Black Inc. and the University |
| Melbourne University Publishing | 1922 | Scholarly, non-fiction | 30, 29 | Book, Journal | Not-for-profit company |
| Monash University Publishing | 2010 | Scholarly, non-fiction | 31, 26 | Book | Under library |
| Sydney University Press | 1962 | Only Scholarly books | 10, 17 | Book | Under library |
| University of Queensland Press | 1948 | Scholarly, fiction, non-fiction, scholarly, young adults, children | 48, 47 | Book | Under Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences |
| University of Technology Sydney ePRESS | 2004 | Scholarly | 1, 2 | Book, Journal | Under library |
| University of Western Australia Publishing | 1935 | Scholarly, fiction, non-fiction, young adults, children | 16, 16 | Book | Under library |
| UNSW Press | 1962 | Scholarly, non-fiction | 28, 31 | Book | Not-for-profit company |
The library–press relationship can have some real benefits. Libraries provide technical infrastructure, digital preservation, and often a stronger commitment to open access. For example, UTS ePress and ANU Press are both fully open access. ANU Press, in fact, is one of the largest OA university presses globally.
Libraries also support journal publishing, sometimes more actively than the presses themselves. In most cases, Australian university presses focus on books, while libraries support journals and open educational resources. Initiatives like CAUL’s Open Educational Resources Collective are led by libraries and have produced over 50 open textbooks so far.
This division of roles, presses doing books, libraries doing journals and OER, might not be a bad thing. But closer collaboration could help with sustainability, infrastructure, and alignment of publishing strategy across the university. For instance, Sydney University Press has benefited from the library’s digitisation infrastructure and collection strength in Australian literature.
The study also found that university presses are maintaining a strong commitment to Indigenous studies, local content, and culturally significant works. They don’t seem to be competing with commercial educational publishers, instead they are filling important gaps in Australia’s publishing landscape, especially for content with a public mission or that wouldn’t survive in a purely commercial market.
In a time when publishing in prestigious journals is emphasised in research assessment, it’s encouraging to see these presses continuing their work. But they need more institutional support, especially for high-quality editing and peer review, functions that often fall through the cracks when budgets are tight.
There’s clearly no one-size-fits-all model. But what the study shows is that flexibility, collaboration, and library engagement can help sustain university publishing in Australia.
To read the full report and see the detailed breakdown of publishing activity, business models, and subject focus, visit the Figshare page.
