By Karen Diaz and Than Saffel
July 2025 heralded a new stage in the close relationship between West Virginia University Libraries and WVU Press, the University’s highly regarded publisher of scholarly and creative work.
University presses are different sorts of publishers than commercial houses in that they report to a given branch of the University’s operations but develop their editorial focus independently. They sometimes report to specific colleges, sometimes to provost’s offices, and, increasingly, to university libraries.
WVU Press has found its place in all 3 scenarios at WVU over the course of its existence. The Press began publishing in the 1960s under director Robert Munn, who was also dean of libraries. In 1998, Dr. Patrick Conner guided WVU Press into a period of intense activity, tying scholarly peer review to the publishing process, joining the American Association of University Presses, and adopting an administrative structure within the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
The current director of WVU Press, Than Saffel, joined as art director and production manager in 2000, at a time of growth and adaptation to new publishing models and technologies.
“My partner Susan and I came out of a growing career in museum exhibits, digital media, and indie publishing in Boston when we moved back to West Virginia to attend family matters,” said Saffel.
We fell in love with the place all over again, partly for the opportunities we saw to make an impact. Joining WVU Press felt natural and challenging in a deeply rewarding way. Than Saffel, Director, WVU Press
Each new phase of the Press has led to an explosion of creativity and a growing reputation for publishing excellent work in a wider and wider variety of fields. But the Press’s return to WVU Libraries this summer is timely and welcome by both the Libraries and the Press.
Having both come through changes to structure and budget over the last 2 years, WVU Libraries and WVU Press have proven to be resilient and lean organizations that have much to offer each other in expertise, interest, and values.
Both organizations work within the information landscape, ensuring that scholarship is made available to the research and broader community. Both are distinctly human in focus, highly labor intensive, and highly engaged with their communities. Often, they share the same communities.
“To me, and I think for our staff, the real gift of joining the Libraries has been the almost instant expansion of our connections throughout WVU,” said Saffel. “There is a deep pool of talent here. I think that has already had a tremendously energizing impact upon the work we do.”
The administrative bandwidth of the Libraries allows for increased interaction to ensure that the director has the information needed to make sound financial decisions, to organize stakeholder meetings, to consider office space, and to occasionally host events for Press authors.
The expertise the Press has in publishing holds great potential for supporting the Libraries’ efforts around open scholarship and open publishing, where appropriate.
“I’m thrilled to bring WVU Press under the auspices of WVU Libraries. I know our opportunities for collaboration are myriad,” Dean of WVU Libraries Karen Diaz said. “The challenge before us is to tak e advantage of joint approaches where mutually beneficial, and to build healthy growth in each o f our distinct organizations to ensure more collaborative capacity in the future. Than and I ha ve agreed to work carefully to make wise decisions about how to strike the right balance of sustainability and advancement.”