Relatively unknown in the community and frequently misunderstood on campus, Penn State University Press is internationally lauded for publishing world-class books and journals.
At the northernmost edge of Penn State’s University Park campus sits University Support Building I — an unassuming single-story office building that most community members have probably never had occasion to visit. Even if they have, they might be surprised to learn that the same building that houses the University Police and Public Safety department is also home to a world-renowned publishing house: the Penn State University Press.
If you are not familiar with the press, you’re not alone. PSUP’s executive director, David Aycock, says he regularly fields requests from people who mistake the press for a strategic communications department that produces press releases and handles media inquiries. Others believe PSUP is the office that publishes The Daily Collegian or does all the printing for the university. A university press is none of those things.
Serving the academy
A university press is a university-affiliated publisher of scholarly books and journals. It functions much like any corporate publishing company, although a university press is a not-for-profit entity whose main purpose is to disseminate works produced by researchers and scholars who are experts in their respective fields.
“Because they’ve been training for many years in their area of the academy, what these scholars are writing is probably going to be the most accurate statement on that particular subject that is likely ever to have been written. But they need avenues of publication for their works. We facilitate that process,” Aycock says. “That’s really why we exist — to serve the academy.”
University presses have been around for over 150 years, and PSUP will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2026. PSUP is part of a global network of university publishers, the Association of University Presses, which has over 164 member presses.
PSUP focuses mainly on the humanities, releasing 65 to 90 books (also known as monographs) each year and publishing 83 journals. Subject areas covered by the books and journals include art history, literature, medieval studies, political science, religious studies, and more. Authors are not necessarily affiliated with Penn State; they come from all over the world.
At Penn State, the press employs 30 people and is a division of Penn State University Libraries and Scholarly Communications.
“We are subsidized by the university, not because people take pity on us, but because that’s the way the ecosystem of scholarship works,” Aycock explains. “You’ve got to have healthy university presses doing this work in order for there to be sound and rigorously produced scholarship.”
While university press monographs are sometimes used in classrooms, they are not textbooks. Rather, they are designed to be read and studied by scholars and researchers, or by anyone interested in taking a deep dive into a specialized interest.
Despite erudite-sounding titles like “Architectural Revolution on the Ottoman Frontier” and “Sound Tactics: Auditory Power in Political Protests,” Aycock says the press aims to make its books accessible to those outside of academia.
“We really do try to package our scholarship in a way that doesn’t repel a general reader,” he says. “This is a land grant university, and that mission extends to us as a press.”
To that end, PSUP has a robust catalog of Pennsylvania-related books, including its popular Keystone Books series, which are generally less academically oriented and intended for a broader audience.
The best-selling PSUP book of all time is “Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic”by Bill Russell, popular among curious local hikers and nature lovers. “Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth” is another top-selling title in the series, used in classrooms across the state. Other Keystone Books titles of interest to local readers include “Lair of the Lion: A History of Beaver Stadium”and “Common Nymphs of Eastern North America: A Primer for Flyfishers and Flytiers.”
Graphic Mundi
PSUP also reaches a more general readership through its Graphic Mundi imprint, described by Aycock as “serious books put into a graphic novel format, which can tell a story in a way that black and white text can’t accomplish.”
Kendra Boileau, assistant director of the press, is the acquiring editor in charge of this imprint. She says in 2015 PSUP became one of the very first university presses to publish graphic novel books, after a Penn State English professor introduced Boileau to the graphic medicine genre, “which is using comics to tell personal health stories and to also educate practitioners about patient experience,” she explains.
The press soon launched a graphic medicine series covering topics ranging from Alzheimer’s to infertility to living with cancer.
In 2021, PSUP expanded the idea beyond medicine with the launch of the Graphic Mundi imprint. The first book of the imprint was “Covid Chronicles,” an anthology of comics documenting the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. About 35 Graphic Mundi titles have followed since then. Many are translations of works originally produced in other countries, and many focus on social and political issues.
“The mission is to give voice to marginalized creators or voices that are not often heard,” Boileau says, citing “Crude: A Memoir,” an indigenous Ecuadorian man’s account of his home in the Amazon being destroyed by Texaco, and migrant narratives such as “Hakim’s Odyssey,” a three-volume set about a Syrian family’s journey to France.
As the graphic novel format has exploded in popularity in recent years, Boileau says Graphic Mundi has been very well-received, earning accolades in major publications such as Kirkus Review, The New York Times, and Publishers Weekly. Many of its titles have won awards, such as the 2021 book “Menopause: A Comic Treatment,” which received an Eisner Award — the most prestigious award in the comics industry.
Success breeds success
In fact, PSUP is a highly decorated and respected press overall, with its monographs regularly winning awards in their respective specialized areas of study. Its books are found in libraries around the world and are often translated into other languages. Aycock says the press’s reputation regularly attracts new authors, and former authors often return to have PSUP publish new books.
“When you have an experience with a capable publisher, it means repeat business,” he says.
This has certainly proven to be true with the journals program, which accounts for half of PSUP’s annual revenue. When Julie Lambert took over as journals manager in 2008, the program published 12 journals; today it publishes 83.
“That growth is a testament to the quality work and air-tight production that Julie and her team provide. Word gets out that this is the case,” Aycock says.
Along with the production and distribution of the journals, a big part of that department’s work has involved setting up an online infrastructure to help editors manage the submission of papers and the peer review process, as well as digitizing the entire journals collection and making articles easier to find via online search engines.
“That online presence is what a lot of these organizations and individual journals were missing. That was the piece we were able to offer to them,” Lambert says.
Many of the journals are owned by organizations such as The Society for Utopian Studies or the Pennsylvania Historical Association and are distributed to members of those organizations, but libraries make up the largest customer base.
The press recently began offering Penn State libraries, as well as anyone using a Penn State IP address on any Penn State campus, full and free access to all PSUP journals and back issues through the Scholarly Publishing Collective online platform.
A small fish in a big ocean
Libraries are also the biggest audience for PSUP monographs, although they can also be found at online bookselling sites like Barnes and Noble or Amazon and can be ordered directly from PSUP. Less scholarly books such as those found in the Keystone Books series are also available in local bookstores.
University press publishing accounts for less than 2% of book sales in the entire world. Their prices tend to run a bit high because their print runs are tiny compared to mass market books published by the likes of Random House or HarperCollins. But university presses regularly join those large publishers at international bookselling events such as the Frankfurt Book Fair and the London Book Fair, where, Aycock says, “You are swimming in the ocean with every other size fish in the book-selling industry. But that’s where a huge amount of work and rights deals get done.”
Aycock is proud of the books and journals PSUP publishes and the impact they have on the academic world. He believes that once people understand who they are and what they do, the community will feel the same.
“Right here in the back yard of Centre County Pennsylvanians is operating one of the premier, world-class university presses that is doing the work of a Yale University Press, a Harvard University Press, a Stanford University Press. We are peers alongside some of the best of the best in the business, and Pennsylvanians ought to be proud of their university’s work.”
‘Chase down a footnote’ … and Get a Discount
Aycock encourages everyone to seek out scholarly journals and books out of curiosity and a desire to learn.
“You don’t have to be afraid of an academic book. My challenge to the public is to go pick up a book that’s a little denser than you would normally read. … Jump to the chapter or subject area that you want and learn something new,” he says. “Chase down a footnote. It is like following the rabbit down the hole in ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ Every footnote is a book or a journal on some shelf somewhere. You go to that book, and it’s got footnotes. And that book’s footnotes might chase you down to a journal article. And before you know it, you’ve got piles of books and journals on your desk because you’re learning — really learning, and not just scrolling through a TikTok.”
To help facilitate this challenge, PSUP is offering two exclusive discounts to Town&Gown readers.
For books, use the code TNG30 to receive a 30% discount on any book ordered through the psupress.org website.
For journals, use the code PSUJ20 to receive 20% off any journal subscription. Visit psupress.org for an entire list of available journals, and call (800) 548-1784 or email jrnlcirc@jh.edu to order. T&G
Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College. She worked in the PSUP sales and marketing department from 1993 to 2000.
