The Association of University Presses is surprised and disappointed to learn of Bucknell University’s plan to close its press at the end of the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
A vibrant publishing program since its founding in 1968 and a member of this association since 2016, Bucknell University Press publishes distinguished work in Iberian, Latin American, Irish, and interdisciplinary eighteenth-century studies. For decades, it has promoted the name and brand of Bucknell University far and wide, amplifying the university’s influence beyond that of similarly sized peers without presses and expanding recognition of the high value of a Bucknell degree. Under the able leadership of Suzanne Guiod, its publications have garnered numerous recent accolades: The Joyce of Everyday Life, by Vicki Mahaffey, won the 2024 American Conference on Irish Studies’ Robert Rhodes Prize; Reading Homer’s Odyssey—intended for undergraduate teaching—was recognized for scholarly excellence as an Association of American Publishers’ PROSE Award finalist; and a remarkable near 30% of the press’s titles published over the past year have received an American Library Association’s CHOICE “Highly Recommended” rating.
Bucknell University Press has also enriched and advanced the university’s educational mission by providing substantive internship and apprenticeship experiences for Bucknell’s undergraduate and graduate students, offering direct, hands-on experience in a robust professional publishing house to the next generation of scholars and publishers.
AUPresses leadership has reached out to Bucknell University officials to offer our community’s assistance and insights as planning for the press proceeds. We remain hopeful that a mutually beneficial reimagination of the press will be possible.
The Community Responds
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Goethe Society of North America
“Bucknell UP Closure Would Also Mark End of Vital Student Internship Program,” H-Net, Feeding the Elephant blog