2009, a year of anniversaries...
This year we celebrate 425 years of continuous publishing, a year that also marks the 475th anniversary of King Henry VIII’s grant to Cambridge University Press of ‘Letters Patent’ allowing us to print ‘all manner of books’. 2009 also sees the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge, providing an occasion for us to join in celebrating our respective foundations by commemorating the books, people, ideas and achievements that have emerged from this shared history and which continue to inspire and transform the world.
University of Cambridge 800th Anniversary website.
Our mission
We aim to further, through publication and printing, the University of Cambridge’s own objective of advancing learning, knowledge and research worldwide. Today, this transformative mission is realized through our commitment to innovation and enterprise, placing us at the cutting-edge of electronic delivery in a world that looks increasingly to digital content and networked access not only to books and journals but to a range of other pedagogic services.
Meeting the needs of our authors, readers and customers
Across the whole range of our publishing, from starter-level English Language Teaching materials for learners worldwide, through curriculum-oriented textbooks and e-resources, to the most specialized academic research outputs, we maintain and extend our age-old reputation for high quality and technological innovation to meet the needs of our customers, authors and readers across the globe.
Our spread of publishing covers virtually every educational subject seriously studied in the English-speaking world – with professional books, textbooks, monographs, reference works, English Language Teaching publications, software and electronic publishing.
An international organisation
With branches, offices and agents throughout the world, we are able to draw on a remarkable range of authors (currently around 36,000 from 120 different countries) and to market and distribute material (both print and electronic) to readers everywhere. Our 1,880 staff in fifty-three offices service an inventory of 34,000 in-print titles, growing at a rate of 2,800 new ISBNs per year, and a stockholding of 20m units in nine warehouses around the world.
The environment
Our organisation has strong commitments to environmental policies, and our UK operation has been accredited with ISO:14001, a prestigious standard – currently held by no other publisher and printer – which recognizes our use of non-wasteful materials and processes.