Cambridge University Press (CUP) have established a new publishing programme to make classic titles available to a new generation of readers. The Press are using digital printing technology to publish paperback copies of over 600 out-of-print titles from its history list.

Richard Fisher, CUP Director of Humanities and Social Sciences, says that the new initiative could be the solution to a long-standing problem for academic publishers:

"Demand for many of our titles never disappears entirely but is often at too low a level to justify reprinting, We call this unsatisfied demand the 'embalmed due' - for the Press this can amount to as many as one million orders a year. Now digital printing means that it can be financially viable to produce even just a few copies of a volume at a time."

The programme is not without its challenges: although the print costs are relatively low, the new system requires a large initial investment and for some volumes there can be very complicated intellectual property issues to negotiate. Nevertheless, the new era of printing 'on demand' holds great promise.

"This initiative has been massively welcomed by authors and if it proves successful then we will expand the programme to include titles from our classics and literary studies lists" says Mr Fisher.

The hope is that their modest price will mean that many titles will become classroom texts. The project began in Spring this year and its viability will receive its first major test this autumn as students, lecturers and university libraries stock up with books for the year.

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