An art historical monograph presents a tightly focused examination of a carefully framed topic, often an artist, group of artists, or a site, form, practice, or theme of artistic production within a given culture. A monograph is usually expected to offer new analytic and critical perspectives on its historical material and to sustain its arguments by detailed research, be it archival, stylistic, iconographic, technical, or socio-historical. Its structure tends to be sequential and linear, with any transcriptions of documents and technical data gathered in appendices. Ph.D. dissertations have traditionally been a primary source of monographs for academic publishers, but conversations with publishers and editors indicate that economic and intellectual imperatives toward broader themes of interdisciplinary appeal have reduced this role of dissertations in recent years.

For several decades, monographs published by North American university presses and their European counterparts have set the gold standard for promotion and tenure, not only because of the thorough research on which they are based but also because of the peer review built into the publication process. In the course of our study, the mechanisms and functions of the peer review process appeared poorly understood by scholars and variously interpreted by editors. While scholars generally think peer review is aimed at improving as well as vetting manuscripts, for publishers and editors the process serves the function of validating (or, more rarely, rejecting) manuscripts already considered worthy of publication.^[1] The university press monograph continues to prevail as the primary criterion for academic advancement in North American universities and colleges, despite stresses on the system caused by the economics of academic publication in all humanities and especially art history.

The survey offers a deliberately distanced perspective on a broader field of observation, with synthetic accounts of themes and arguments rather than detailed new study. Although supported by broad and deep reading and knowledge, they tend to give extended bibliographies rather than a full scholarly apparatus. Surveys often serve as textbooks and as general interest introductions to a field, and they have traditionally been the preserve of senior scholars. In recent years, however, several new series of surveying "studies" rather than textbooks have also selected their authors from a younger pool of promising scholars. When seen as critical interventions as much as textbooks, these books are now sometimes accepted as significant contributions toward tenure and promotion in their fields of study.^[2]

Art museums and their curators are major producers and disseminators of art historical scholarship. Museums offer rich opportunities specific to art history to advance research through exhibitions and publications based on individual collections and works of art. Because of their large and growing audiences, museums are often able to raise funds for abundantly illustrated, handsomely produced publications, particularly catalogues and journal issues related to exhibitions. Since the 1970s, museum publication has shifted from curatorially focused museum journals and collection catalogues to summary handbooks and exhibition-driven publications. Exhibition catalogues in recent decades have generally grown in page count and illustration program. They usually contain a section of synthetic and thematic essays written by the curator and additional experts from inside and outside the museum, and a catalogue proper of entries dedicated to the works of art on display. Full entries tend to include the kind of detailed information that sustains art historical scholarship, including measurements and information about medium, technique, condition, patronage, subject matter, style, date, provenance, exhibition history, and bibliographic record.

In the academic credentialing process, publications based on collections and exhibitions tend not to be considered as seriously as single-author monographs or peer-reviewed journal articles. As catalogues often synthesize prior scholarship, in the manner of a survey, and as their content is constrained by considerations of audience and availability of loans, questions are occasionally raised about the originality of the research or the factors demarcating the field of study. Because of the exceptionally time-constrained editorial process in museums, catalogue manuscripts are rarely subjected to effective peer review. Promotion and tenure committees are aware of these limitations. Their redress will take rethinking of the museum publication genre by art history scholars within the museum and the academy.

Part III of this report includes further thoughts about the potential of museum publications as sites of disciplinary nurture and collaboration.

In the past two decades, art history's methodological diversification and interdisciplinary moves have yielded increased publication of books of essays by several authors, edited by the lead author(s). A preliminary review of the titles published by eight key university presses in the field suggests that edited volumes make up a larger percentage of all titles published in art history today than was the case during the early 1990s.  Perhaps as many as 20 percent of the art history titles published by these eight presses between 2000 and 2004 were edited volumes, compared to roughly 15 percent a decade earlier.^[3] Some of these volumes result from conference proceedings, others by commission from an academic editor. They tend to approach a particular topic or research question from a variety of viewpoints, and they thus meet the interest of academic publishers in titles that may reach cross-over audiences. Publishers often position such works as course readers or supplementary textbooks.

Nevertheless, the market for most of these books is not especially vigorous, and production values are usually kept lower than for monographs and museum publications. Peer review tends to be minimal, and usually happens at the stage of the commissioned prospectus rather than for the completed manuscript. In many cases, the genre may not be so different in scholarly content and rigor from that of the time-pressured, surveying exhibition catalogue. Not surprisingly, concerns about originality and scholarly weight of chapters in edited volumes arise in promotion and tenure review, even though the genre incorporates a wide range of scholarly activity. The editorship of volumes with contributions from leading scholars or with sharp new perspectives tends to carry greater prestige.

For many art historians, a peer-reviewed journal article was and is the first step from Ph.D. dissertation to monograph. Before the establishment of the university press monograph as the sine qua non for tenure in leading universities and colleges, sometime in the 1970s, a series of such articles could suffice to establish a scholar's academic credentials. It is easy to see why. The all-field journals of record in the discipline, as well as many field-specific journals, have traditionally been edited by leading scholars in the field and supported by editorial boards of similar caliber. Many have parent organizations that lend professional weight to the publication. The journals maintain high standards of multiple, double-blind peer review and academic copy-editing. Given the continuous vigor of these editorial practices, peer-reviewed journal publication could again play a much more central role in academic credentialing, as such articles do in the sciences and social sciences.

In their present formats, however, even journals with the most liberal word counts, footnote policies, and illustration programs, are unlikely to support publications of monographic scope, depth, and density. Part III of this report gives further thought to the potential of the peer-reviewed journal for the electronic publication of the kinds of extended argument, archival documentation, image programs, and referencing that sustain the discipline.

In principle, each of the publication genres of art history discussed so far could be issued electronically. In the sciences, and increasingly the social sciences, electronic publication has become the standard mode of scholarly communication. The humanities have been slow to follow, particularly art history and other disciplines traditionally dependent on sustained, linear argumentation that stands in an ostensive relation to illustrations. The discipline-wide journals of record do not appear in electronic form, born-digital journals are rare, and few such initiatives appear to be in the pipeline (welcome exceptions include 19th-Century Art Worldwide, caa.reviews, and the Smithsonian Institution's American Art).

Extant electronic publications in art history and visual culture are still based on print forms, rather than fully exploiting the analytic and dialogic potential of electronic media. Such traditional forms do not communicate scholarship in a way optimally suited to the kinds of reading done well on desktop or handheld monitors. In its length and sequential form, the monograph may always be more suited to print, but, as the sciences have found, more compartmentalized and collaborative kinds of scholarship such as catalogues and documentary publications might be more useful to readers as networked publications that allow searching and non-sequential accessing of the parts.^[4] The serious image copyright issues discussed in Part II of this report partly explain art history's delayed adoption of electronic publication. Part III analyzes other factors impeding electronic publication in art history, and examines the untapped potential of the digital environment for new kinds of art historical publication that might supplement and complement, rather than fully replace, genres that may be as or more effective in print.

As the main producers and readers of art historical publications, scholars identified numerous concerns in the course of our study. Junior scholars (defined as untenured or recently tenured faculty) and senior scholars (defined as scholars who have had tenure in leading research institutions for some time) share these interests to different degrees.

Scholars consulted in our study focused on the following concerns.

Ad 1. Scholars, particularly at the junior level, detail experiences and perceptions that academic press editors, in seeking to broaden the appeal of their titles in trans- or interdisciplinary ways, ask for shorter manuscripts and changes that may affect the scholarly contribution in undesirable ways without necessarily becoming more marketable. Junior scholars also express concerns about a lack of transparency in the process of obtaining a contract and of the functions of peer review. Senior scholars are concerned that peer review is rarely followed up effectively and that it has something of a rubber-stamp function.

Ad 2. Senior as well as junior scholars note that Ph.D. dissertations, formerly one of the major sources of monographs, have less of a chance of getting published by university presses without serious revisions of the kind described above. Some senior scholars remark, however, that dissertations are now so narrowly focused that many would not make for very good books, and some try to steer their students’ dissertations in such a way that the product is effectively a book-length argument rather than an accumulation of data. All the same, scholars noted that the production and dissemination of such dissertation data remains vital to the health of the discipline. Scholars at all levels would like to ensure that the full range of dissertation research is disseminated effectively in monographic as well as other forms.

Given an apparent retrenchment in monograph publication, scholars generally wish for promotion and tenure committees to acknowledge that other genres of art historical publication may make equally distinguished and transformative contributions to the discipline. Some emerging fields appear to have fewer monograph publication opportunities available to them, and they may be driven more strongly by exhibitions or articles. Many scholars bemoan the relative devaluation in the credentialing process of the peer-reviewed article, noting its timely, cutting-edge, and thoroughly vetted character. Senior scholars recall that a series of such articles in the past constituted grounds for tenure and promotion, and that they may nurture the discipline in ways that are as essential as longer monographs. They recommend a revaluation of the scholarly article based on a dissertation chapter. Scholars also note that museum publications inherently command the larger audiences so sought after by presses.

Ad 3. Scholars across the board are shouldering increasing costs associated with publishing monographs and journal articles. These costs are almost exclusively due to the illustration programs required in art history publication. As editors confirm, scholars bear the lion’s share of the costs of image acquisitions and reproduction permission fees. Assuming a modest average of $25 per black-and-white illustration, a book with 100 figures would cost the author $2,500. Most illustration programs easily double that figure, as discussed in Part II of this report.

Color plates tend to command higher permission fees, and their production is significantly more costly to publishers. Scholars are often asked to contribute subventions for color illustrations, and sometimes for larger-than-average image programs. Subventions for illustrations are frequently sought from the scholars’ home institutions, professional organizations, foundations, and private philanthropists. Scholars would welcome a clear guide to such opportunities.

Apart from direct costs, scholars incur opportunity costs in the time-consuming navigation of the image and permission request system. They find the complexities of copyright law opaque and the request process cumbersome, and wish for a more streamlined procedure across institutions owning works of art, photographs of works of art, and copyrights. Part II of this report addresses these questions more fully.

Ad 4. Senior scholars consulted throughout the study suggested that university and foundation leaders address the challenges facing art history publication in a systemic manner. They acknowledged that a simple recommitment to the scholarly monograph or increase in subventions will not yield long-term solutions that will sustain the discipline and ensure the professional advancement of their students. Scholars note that a comprehensive approach should allow for the continued publication of the kinds of knowledge the monograph has traditionally produced: the book-length argument as well as the detailed reconstitution of art historical objects of study by archival, archaeological, connoisseurial, and iconographic techniques. There is widespread recognition that not all of this work needs to appear in the traditional form of the university press monograph.

Scholars are generally open to the potential of electronic publishing and of print publications with electronic additions, seeing such dissemination primarily as a way to circumvent the high costs and image-program limitations associated with print publication. While many scholars express reservations about the stability and prestige of the digital medium and about escalation of the image quality and copyright problems, others find that current electronic publications do not leverage sufficiently the dynamic and dialogic potential of the digital space. Further thoughts about these transitional challenges and the special potential of electronic publication for art history are presented in Part III of this report.

The mission of North American university presses has traditionally been one of furthering scholarship at large, without direct regard for the particular work produced in the universities that bear their name. Those universities supported their presses because of the intellectual and scholarly prestige associated with their publications. In the humanities, the presses have long focused on publishing peer-reviewed monographs; over time, the monograph has become the primary criterion for tenure and promotion in North American universities and colleges. University press editors expressed concerns that this development has put academic review decisions too squarely in their court.

In recent years, university press monograph publication rates in art history have not quite kept pace with the growth of the professional community of art historians (see Trends). Several challenges to presses have made vigorous front lists of traditional, discipline-based monographs in art and architectural history less feasible now than they were a decade ago:

Publishers and editors are well aware that current business models for art history publishing need to be revised, and they recognize new possibilities in born-digital publication and print-on-demand distribution. Nonetheless, many are also skeptical about the viability of these new channels of art history publication in the short term.

As universities have begun to restructure their relationships to their presses, either by bringing them into the university library structure or requiring them to operate on a semi-profitable business model, the role of university presses has become less clear. Discussions with publishers and editors suggest that a concerted effort to clarify the functions and operating models of university presses would be timely.

Research libraries play an important role in the scholarly publishing environment in that they represent a significant portion of the market for scholarly monographs.^[5] Thus changes in library funding, organization, or activities can greatly affect the field of scholarly publishing. For this reason the current status and future directions of libraries were also considered in our study.

Although more and more publications are offered in digital form, libraries continue to acquire significant collections in print. Nevertheless, library budgets are increasingly stretched because of the very high cost of scientific journals and the concomitant need to cut back on other purchases—often print monographs. Libraries have to balance the continued acquisition of print materials with the need to acquire ever-growing numbers of electronic resources. Libraries are also devoting significant resources to preservation and long-term access of digital collections, and they are taking an increasingly active role in the management of and advising on copyright and intellectual property issues. And finally, librarians have developed extensive expertise in the areas of discovery and access to digital information resources, and are providing diversified services to scholars and students in searching across multiple databases and publications. A number of publishers consult with librarians concerning the design and functionality of their digital resources so as to make sure that they conform to the ways in which users are accustomed to finding and accessing information.

Libraries seek to acquire digital resources that will serve the needs of a wide range of users. Despite the budgetary constraints that they face, they remain committed to acquiring as many print monographs as possible. They do not wish to purchase resources twice—that is, if they already have them in one form they do not wish to purchase them a second time in another format or bundled with other content. Such policies depress the appetite of libraries for books that are explicitly based on dissertations if, as is usually the case, dissertations are already available in print or electronic forms. Well aware of the declining sales potential of dissertation-based monographs, some standard book distributors deliberately exclude them from their offerings, and editors are cautious to accept such manuscripts.^[6]

Libraries generally welcome innovative products that represent new forms of scholarship and presentation, however, and prefer pricing and access models that allow them to make resources easily available to their patrons whether they are working on campus, from home, or in the field. This preference creates a strong potential market for electronic publication in art history.

Museums are major publishers of art historical scholarship, primarily through the genres of the collection catalogue, the exhibition publication, and the museum-based journal. The most active area of publication is centered on exhibitions, which typically yield catalogues of the kind described under Genres of Scholarly Publication. Other exhibition publications include books of essays with a summary checklist, special issues of museum journals, and edited volumes or online postings of papers based on exhibition symposia.

A significant development in museum publications over the past decade has been their outsourcing to university presses. The arrangement is mutually beneficial. To the university press, a publication done in partnership with a museum guarantees advance book sales and thus profitability. It also offers the press the superior marketing and visibility that comes with participation in significant exhibitions, and it allows the press to expand its list without significant additional editorial investment. Several museums have research centers attached to them, and the relationship to such museums gives presses privileged access to the authors associated with them.^[7] To museums, managing elaborate editorial and book production departments is financially onerous; outsourcing some (though never all) of these functions to presses with expertise in art book production relieves some of these pressures. University presses with significant marketing reach also extend the sales life of the exhibition-bound publication.

Respondents to our survey of university press editors reported that 24.5 percent of the art history books published by their presses over the past three years were exhibition catalogues and another five percent were museum-related titl