An icon of three books next to each other

Chemeketa Press is the academic publishing arm of Chemeketa. This is a new model for textbook publishing that designs the textbooks that students need at prices they can afford. The sales of these textbooks then supports the on-going work of the Press without reliance on grant funding.

The Press has developed lean, innovative methods to help teaching faculty produce the textbooks they’ve always always wanted and never gotten from commercial publishers or OER developers. Faculty work closely with Press staff to draft, revise, illustrate, and review the books they envision. The Press then uses print-on-demand publishing techniques to produce affordable printed textbooks, even with small orders, because contrary to the claims of commercial publishers and OER developers, most students prefer and learn better from printed texts.

Starting in 2015 as part of a college-wide textbook affordability initiative, the Press has helped faculty to publish thirty affordable textbooks. Through the 2017-18 school year, these books served more than 27,000 students and saved those students $1.5 million over the price of new commercial textbooks. The existence of these books helps the Bookstore negotiate with commercial publishers to lower their prices, too, creating a second wave of student savings.

Chemeketa Press also affords opportunities for faculty to engage in scholarly pursuits. For example, faculty member in history, Taylor Marrow, edited a source book, America Awaken: The Anti-Lynching Crusade of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, to use in a new course on African-American history he developed. Listen to his interview here to discover more about Taylor's work at Chemeketa.