Twenty-one employees will lose their jobs when Columbia University Press this summer closes its warehouse and customer-order operations on a wooded 60-acre estate in Irvington.
A university spokesman last week said Columbia officials have not made a decision on the future of the warehouse at 136 S. Broadway. Nevis Laboratories, the Columbia physics department”™s research center for high-energy experimental particle and nuclear physics, also is located on the property.
The press has contracted with Perseus Distribution, a division of The Perseus Books Group in Jackson, Tenn., to take over fulfillment operations now done in Irvington. Press officials said the scheduled Aug. 6 closing will affect 25 employees, four of whom will be transferred to the press”™s Manhattan office. The restructuring is part of the small nonprofit publisher”™s effort to reduce print costs while developing electronic delivery of its publications.
Through Perseus, the university press will offer digital services not previously available to its 11 distribution partners, particularly short-run digital printing, print on demand and a suite of delivery services for electronic books in multiple formats. The 116-year-old press will continue to concentrate on growing its core publishing operations, including its recently launched Columbia Business School Publishing imprint, in multiple formats.
The South Broadway campus, a secluded browsing ground for deer, originally was owned by the son of Alexander Hamilton, according to Columbia officials. The DuPont family of Delaware donated the estate to the university in 1934. Construction of Nevis physics labs began in 1947 and the school reportedly bought the adjoining press warehouse property in 1954.
Columbia University spokesman Brian F. Connolly last week said Columbia will continue to maintain its Nevis Laboratories campus. The university is evaluating uses for the warehouse facility, he said.
