The publishers met to discuss problems facing university presses until the group formally began meeting daily.

Soon after, the group was placing cooperative ads with The New York Times, publishing sales catalogs, and producing the first educational directory, a specialized direct-mailing list of American academics and librarians.

The 1932 Cheney Report encouraged joint activities among publishers facing economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression and inspired a memo from Donald Bean, the group's secretary and director of the University of Chicago Press.

Membership continued to grow steadily, and the responding swell of activity led to the establishment of a central office in 1959.

A new visual identity and logo were introduced at the time, the designers' brief being to show the AUPresses as "open and engaging, representing a forward-thinking and mission-driven publishing community that holds to — and stands for — high standards of scholarship and professionalism.