For many decades, universities have tried a variety of business plans to promote and preserve the intellectual and creative visions of their faculty and students, and their own reputations as centers of excellence of various kinds, while retaining the sense of objectivity and judgment that such notions as peer review reinforce. It has ALWAYS been an uphill battle. And the majority of the products have remained ‘gray literature’ or incubators for greater success and acceptance (cultural and financial) later and elsewhere.

University culture has changed, and fiscal realities have changed. Technology is driving some of this change, and also presents new opportunities for the James Monroe Smith’s of the future. We are no longer in an era where distribution is a challenge. It is no longer necessary to print thousands of copies of something and keep them all clean and dry for years and years until someone notices their value. In fact, tax law prohibits it.

Now we have new challenges. The profundity of the revolution in communications that the internet is unleashing will make Gutenberg look like a hobbyist. The question for visionary intellectual administrators is not unlike that facing the embattled recording, newspaper, or movie industry executives, among many others – how to get a toe-hold in this new world and keep your head above water.

That’s not to say that there exists in university boardrooms across the US the imagination and will to define ‘core values’ in a way that will emphasize intellectual achievement over steroidal enhancement, but should that be the case, the next JM Smith has many bright shiny new tools to employ. The issue is not to save what is as it is. The issue is to discern how to transfer the light of great writing, great thinking and great intellectual endeavor from one vessel across the dark to another without dropping it into the pit.